Professor Daniela Berghahn’s latest monograph Exotic Cinema: Encounters with Cultural Difference in Contemporary Transnational Film (Edinburgh University Press) has won the Janovics Center Award for Outstanding Humanities Research in Transnational Film and Theatre.

Here’s what the international jury says about her book, which was selected as the Best Book of 2023:
The Jury commends the monograph as an outstanding example of transnational film studies research, which analyzes many films from various continents and regions of the globe. Berghahn's meticulous scholarship, comprehensive writing, and well-constructed argument are praised for decentering concepts such as the exotic and exoticism, inviting readers to rethink them. The book moves away from the received wisdom of exoticism, too often coupled with orientalism and colonial power, and offers an original and insightful look at what the notion means today. With a profound understanding of the literature in her field, Berghahn offers a courageous critical reassessment of the aesthetic strategies and cultural value of exoticism against competing concepts describing cross-cultural encounters, such as orientalism, colonialism, primitivism, imperialism, and cultural appropriation. Her case studies are meticulously discussed and offer a multifaceted picture not just of individual films but also of their production context and reception.

Berghahn has also been invited to present her research at an international Awards Colloquium at the Janovics Center (Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca) in May 2024.

In addition, she was also presented with the ‘Author of the Year 2024 in African Studies Award’ by the Centre for African Studies at Babeș-Bolyai University. Although African cinema does not feature prominently in Berghahn’s monograph, her innovative analysis of decentred exoticism in contemporary transnational and world cinema was commended as establishing a new paradigm that is just as pertinent to the study of African cinema.