POSTPONED: Holocaust Murder and Memory in Central and Eastern European Horror Film Seminar

Please note that this event has been postponed due to UCU Strike Action. We will update those who have registered with the new date when it becomes available.

Evident from onscreen configurations of zombie-like Muselmänner to Satanic Nazi perpetrators, cinema has always dealt with the Holocaust-as-horror, whether within films identifying with the horror genre or otherwise. Perhaps more surprising, however, is the existence of horror narratives and tropes pertaining to the Holocaust in Central and Eastern Europe, where horror film as we know it was never able to flourish prior to the fall of communism due to Soviet-era censorship. This talk draws on new research into 20th and 21st century genre film to question the possibility of a Central and Eastern European subgenre of Holocaust horror cinema, and examine what these works reveal about the role and contemporary legacy of the event in the region. It does so in dialogue with two art films deriving from Central Europe: Anka and Wilhelm Sasnal’s Polish aftermath film It Looks Pretty from a Distance (2011), and Juraj Herz’s Czech New Wave film The Cremator (1969).

This event will be chaired by Dr James Jordan.

About the Speaker

Dr Emily-Rose Baker is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Holocaust Film in the Parkes Institute and Department of English. Her research project examines the legacy of the Holocaust and Jewish-Slavic relations in Central and Eastern European film, and is funded by the British Academy. She completed her PhD in English Literature from the University of Sheffield in 2020, where she wrote her thesis on Post-Communist Holocaust Memory in Central and Eastern Europe, before teaching the Holocaust in visual culture to undergraduate and postgraduate students as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Film at The University of Texas at Dallas.