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Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the creative aspirations and models of a cosmopolitanism of a group of professionals with Polish nationality, who enrolled in a postgraduate degree for international creative film production during the COVID-19 pandemic at a Polish film school.

Paper long abstract:

My paper explores the creative aspirations and models of a cosmopolitanism of young professionals with Polish nationality, who enrolled in a postgraduate course for international creative film production during the COVID-19 pandemic at a Polish film school. The group of students included a YouTuber, the director of a musical school for children, an outdoor sports content producer, an attorney, a member of a social think tank, to only name a few. The paper asks what it means for those mostly transnationally living individuals to craft professional and personal identities in times of right-wing conservatism in Poland and lasting inequalities in the EU, but also in an era of transforming media-landscapes through VOD-services and Youtube, and in the light of conversations shaped by #metoo and #blacklivesmatter. It provides insights into the complexity of interweaving digital capitalism, 21st century discourses of the global, personal aspirations and dreams, cultural politics and hegemonies, the creative kinship groups, and the challenges of the pandemic. My interviewees reflect on the promises of creative self-development and the realities of filmmaking, their relationships to Poland and their individual projects of building cosmopolitan lives, on being creative producers in different contexts.

The paper concludes by reconsidering what Cosmo-Polishness (Artur Becker, 2019) - could mean in the context of my interviewees. I highlight the shared desire for recognition as creative professionals, while drawing attention also to emerging fragilities, doubts, and hopes around the global film sector.