Non-Fiction Cinema in Postwar Europe: Visual Culture and the Reconstruction of Public Space

After WWII, cinema was everywhere: in movie theatres, public squares, factories, schools, trial courts, trains, museums, and political meetings. Seen today, documentaries and newsreels, as well as the amateur production, show the kaleidoscopic portrait of a changing Europe. How did these cinematic images contribute to shaping the new societies emerging from the ashes of war, both in the Western and in the Eastern bloc? Why were they so crucial in framing and regulating new places and practi...