This book confronts theoretical models on cinema as both a product and a catalyst of European modernity with new empirical work on the history of the social experience of cinema-going, film audiences and film exhibition.

Chapter 1. Cinema, audiences and modernity: an introduction Daniel Biltereyst, Richard Maltby and Philippe Meers Part I - Cinema, Tradition and Community Chapter 2. Cinema-going between ideology and commerce: a longitudinal research on rural versus urban cinema in Flanders (1920s-1970s) Philippe Meers, Kathleen Lotze, Lies Van de Vijver and Daniel Biltereyst Chapter 3. Spaces of Early Film Exhibition in Sweden, 1897-1911 Asa Jernudd Chapter 4. Movie-going under Military Occupation, Düsseldorf, 1919 - 1925 Frank Kessler and Sabine Lenk Chapter 5. 'Christ is coming to the Elite cinema': Film exhibition in the Catholic South of the Netherlands, 1910s and 1920s Thunnis Van Oort Chapter 6. The Cinematic Shapes of the Socialist Modernity Programme: Ideological and Economic Parameters of Cinema Distribution in the Czech Lands, 1948 - 1970 Pavel Skopal Chapter 7. '...The Management Committee intend to act as Ushers': Cinema Operation and the South Wales Miners' Institutes in the 1950s and 1960s Stefan Moitra Part II - Audiences, Modernity and Cultural Exchange Chapter 8. Urban legend: Early cinema, modernization, and urbanization in Germany, 1895 - 1914 Annemone Ligensa Chapter 9. 'Diagnosis: Flimmeritis': Female Cinema-going in Imperial Germany, 1911 - 1918 Andrea Haller Chapter 10. AFGRUNDEN in Germany: Monopolfilm, Cinema-Going and the Emergence of the Film Star Asta Nielsen, 1910 - 1911 Martin Loiperdinger Chapter 11. 'Senza Patria' or without a homeland: Italian war films and immigrants in London, 1914 - 1918 Pierluigi Ercole Chapter 12. Imagining modern Hungary through film: debates on national identity, modernity and cinema in early twentieth century Hungary Ana Manchin Chapter 13. Hollywood in disguise: Practices of exhibition and reception of foreign films in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s Petr Szczepanik