How is Joseph Gaï Ramaka's film Karmen used to negotiate cultural and national identities both in Senegal and abroad? And how do you identify or define the genre, nationality and "home" audience of this film, created by a Senegalese director based in Paris and Dakar, using Canadian actors, shot in Senegal, based on a Frech author's short story set in Spain, and produced in France with multi-national funding?

These are some of the questions addressed by Mari Maasilta in the case exploration and sosiocultural film analysis conducted in her doctoral dissertation. "African Carmen. Transnational Cinema as an Arena for Cultural Contradictions."