Social Ties of Latvian Film Professionals in the Soviet Era and the Historical Situatedness of the Canon

Ewa Mazierska and László Strausz, in their opinion pieces in “Studies in Eastern European Cinema”, have opened a discussion about the diminishing critical relevance of feature films made in Eastern Europe (Mazierska 2023, Strausz 2023). I argue here that we have to differentiate between a canon as a discursive construction that, as Strausz underscores, is built on the East-West dichotomy, as well as on the actual personal ties and exchanges of experiences that took place between the filmmakers of different Eastern European countries, the Soviet Republics and the “Third World”. By paying attention to the different social contacts of the historical actors and how they construct an epistemic community, the “constructiveness” of the film canon as socially and historically situated knowledge comes to the forefront.