ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes three levels of approaching the new world cinema. The first, a polycentric level, shows the comparative strength and influence of five cinematic centers. Second, world cinema is polymorphic, an interconnected assemblage of various forms: national, transnational, postcolonial, diasporic, small and minor cinemas. Finally, world cinema is polyvalent, requiring an understanding of how each film is viewed and interpreted differently in different parts of the world. Watching a film from a certain position in the world generates an interpretation that bears the imprint of the viewing conditions and the viewer. Individual case studies are discussed less through the films' narrative or formal meanings or as instances of particular paradigms, but as utterances existing in a network of various local and global forces (economic, institutional, cultural) that determine their position on the map of world cinema, which may be prominent, marginal, or invisible.
