Has European cinema, in the age of globalization, lost contact not only withthe world at large, but with its own audiences? Between the thrivingfestival circuit and the obligatory late-night television slot, is therestill a public or a public sphere for European films? Can the cinema be theappropriate medium for a multicultural Europe and its migrating multitudes?Is there a division of representational labor, with Hollywood providingstars and spectacle, the Asian countries exotic color and choreographedaction, and Europe a sense of history, place and memory? This collection of essays by an acclaimed film scholar examines howindependent filmmaking in Europe has been reinventing itself since the 1990s, faced by renewed competition from Hollywood and the challenges posed tonational cinemas by the fall of the Wall in 1989. Elsaesser reassesses thedebates and presents a broader framework for understanding theforces at work since the 1960s. These include the interface of "world cinema" and the rise of Asian cinemas, the importance of the internationalfilm festival circuit, the role of television, and the changingaesthetics of auteur cinema. New audiences have different allegiances, andnew technologies enable networks to reshape identities, but European cinemastill has an important function in setting critical and creative agendas, even as its economic and institutional bases are in transition.