ABSTRACT
The introduction consists of two parts. The first, a historiographic analysis, provides an examination of the repertoire of historical models used to study the phenomenon of health films, investigating their explanatory and descriptive possibilities, including options for studying health films in Eastern Europe. The recent attempts to narrate the history of health films as a part of establishing a global health security regime are critically interpreted as reproducing linear historical models that miss important contexts and remain at risk for historical inaccuracy. We discuss the options to develop the approach already introduced in the historicization of educational films and aimed at interpreting films through stressing the shared emotions and collective practices of consuming films. The second part discusses the specifics of health film production and dissemination in Eastern European countries. We provide general arguments in favor of reconstructing the history of health films as a part of the new regimes of authenticity aimed at overcoming cultural and social contradictions of nation-building and trace the long-term international “career” of health films in Eastern Europe.
