Serian Carlyle

Supervisors: Dr Rachel Morley, Dr Philip Cavendish

Present Status: MPhil candidate

Working title of thesis: Genre and Youth in films made by the Gor’kii Central Film Studio for Children’s and Young People’s Films (Tsentral’naia Kinostudiia detskikh i iunosheskikh fil’mov imeni Gor’kogo), 1963-1982

Research: My research investigates the use of genre in films for young people made at the Gor’kii Central Film Studio under the Brezhnev leadership in the Soviet Union (1963-1982). I aim to develop a historic understanding of the studio’s aims, function, and development in this period. To this end, I analyse the extent to which the studio’s internal directives shifted from the end of the Thaw to the early 1980s, in the context of wider changes to Soviet cinema, such as an increasing focus on ensuring profitability.

I aim to show how the studio interpreted its mandate as studio for children and young people and to analyse how this impacted on the films made there. I explore the different genres of films for young people that were made at the studio, focusing on four of the most prolific, namely: the fairy-tale, the adventure film, the school tale, and the war film.

Research Interests: Cinema, Young People, Gender, Identity, Health, Representation on Screen

Research Centre Affiliation: Russian Cinema Research Group