"The book provides a succinct and comprehensive study of the history, aesthetics, and theory of sub-Saharan African cinematic productions that is grounded in the field of film studies instead of textual interpretations from other disciplines. Bringing African cinema out of the margins into the disci
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pline of mainstream film studies and showcasing the diverse cinematic expressions of the continent, the book covers:
Overview of African cinema(s): Questions our assumptions about the continent’s cinematic productions and defines the characteristics of African cinema across linguistic, geographic, and filmic divides.
History of African and African-American cinema: Spans the history of film in Africa from colonial import and ‘appropriation of the gaze’ to the quest for individuality. It also establishes parallels in the historical development of black African cinema and African-American cinema.
Aesthetics: Introduces new research on previously unexplored aesthetic dimensions such as cinematography, animation, and film music.
Theoretical Approaches: Addresses a number of theoretical approaches and critical frameworks developed by scholars in the study of African cinema.
All chapters include case studies, suggestions for further reading, and screening lists to deepen the reader’s knowledge with no prior knowledge of African cinema required." (Publisher description)
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"The aesthetic form and financial infrastructures of African popular film has transformed in recent years leading to a revision of the paradigms for thinking African screen media. This paper assesses that rethinking. It examines three things. First, I argue the analysis of the technical, financial,
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and institutional infrastructures of film has a longer history in studies of African screen media and is, perhaps, one of its most innovative aspects. Second, I expand analyses beyond the dichotomy between traditional African cinema and popular film to take in colonial and postcolonial educational cinemas, the historical and continuing presence of foreign films (U.S., Indian, French, Chinese), and emergent art-world, gallery cinemas. These have all generated rich scholarly debate but are often segregated from each other. I argue we can fruitfully analyse them as part of a single cinematic ecology. Third, I turn from a general discussion of infrastructures of distribution and exhibition to a more narrow focus on “new Nollywood” cinema in Nigeria. I re-examine recent debates about the political effects of these new infrastructures of production and exhibition and their supposed complicity with contemporary neo-liberalism." (Abstract)
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"Focusing in particular on Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, Tamara Falicov examines commonalities among Latin American film industries, such as the challenges of procuring funding, competition from Hollywood, state funding battles, and the fickle nature of audiences, as well as censorship issues, compe
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tition from television, and the transnational nature of Latin American film. She addresses production, exhibition, and distribution contexts and financing and co-production with Europe and the United States, as well as the role of film festivals in funding and circulating films both within and outside of Latin America. Newer trends such as the revival of protectionist measures like the screen quota are framed in contrast to the U.S.'s push for trade policy liberalization and issues of universal concern such as film piracy, and new technologies and the role of television in helping and hindering Latin American cinema." (Publisher description)
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"By critically examining how trauma theory and subaltern studies have previously been applied to testimonial cinema, Garibotto rereads Argentinian films produced since 1983 and calls for an alternate interpretive framework at the intersection of semiotics, theories of affect, scholarship on hegemony
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, and the ideological uses of documentary and fiction. She argues that recurrent concepts—such as trauma, mourning, memory, and subalternity—miss how testimonial films have changed over time, shifting from subaltern narratives to official, hegemonic, and iconic accounts. Her work highlights the urgent need to continue to study these types of narratives, particularly at a time when military dictatorships have become entrenched in Latin America and memory narratives proliferate worldwide. Although Argentina is Garibotto's focus, her theory can be adapted to other contexts in which narratives about recent political conflicts have shifted from alternative versions of history to official, hegemonic accounts—such as in Spanish, Chilean, Uruguayan, Brazilian, South African, and Holocaust testimonies. Garibotto's study of testimonial cinema moves us to pursue a broader ideological analysis of the links between film and historical representation." (Publisher description)
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"The volume is divided into three parts, focusing respectively on historical periodizations, categories that share formal characteristics, and structural elements involved in the production, distribution, and reception of the works themselves. In historical terms, topics range from the birth of Chin
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ese cinema at the beginning of the twentieth century to the present moment, and include discussions of several periods that have hitherto not yet received much detailed analysis—including Manchurian cinema from the 1930s and 1940s, and Mainland Chinese cinema from the Maoist period. In formal terms, topics range from familiar cinematic genres such as the opera film and the war film, to newer techno-formal configurations such as small-screen and large-screen cinemas. In structural terms, topics range acting and directing to the practices of reenactments and remakes. Neither the volume as a whole, its three main parts, nor any of its individual chapters pretends to present an encyclopedic overview of its corresponding topic. Instead, our objective is to explore the interpretive spaces that open up at the interstices of various existing conceptions of the shape of the field. It is here, we contend, that we may find the key to a richer understanding not only of a singular “Chinese cinema,” but more importantly of an eclectic body of mutually overlapping Chinese cinemas." (Publisher description)
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"Bringing theory and practice together, 'African Cinema and Human Rights' argues that moving images have a significant role to play in advancing the causes of justice and fairness. The contributors to this volume identify three key ways in which film can achieve these goals: documenting human rights
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abuses and thereby supporting the claims of victims and goals of truth and reconciliation within larger communities; legitimating, and consequently solidifying, an expanded scope for human rights; and promoting the realization of social and economic rights. Including the voices of African scholars, scholar-filmmakers, African directors Jean-Marie Teno and Gaston Kaboré, and researchers whose work focuses on transnational cinema, this volume explores overall perspectives, and differences of perspective, pertaining to Africa, human rights, and human rights filmmaking alongside specific case studies of individual films and areas of human rights violations." (Publisher description)
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" Es cierto que el crítico de cine es por encima de todo un espectador, pero en palabras de François Truffaut, es «un espectador que tiene la necesidad de analizar el propio placer y describirlo». Un crítico de cine es mucho más que alguien que aconseja o desaconseja una película. Debe ser aq
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uel que ofrezca claves de comprensión del film que permita al espectador aproximarse con mayor inteligencia y con mayor capacidad de disfrute. Comprender y describir por qué una película nos agrada o no, requiere unos conocimientos que permitan fundamentar estas valoraciones. Criterios estéticos y formales propios del cine, pero también criterios culturales más amplios. De esta manera está concebido este Manual de crítica de cine, para afirmar con el mismo Truffaut, que «una película para estar lograda debe expresar simultáneamente una concepción del mundo y una concepción del cine»." (Descripción de la casa editorial)
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"A crowdfunding platform for movies is an alternative way of refunding movie production costs. Usually, such platform combines several types of funding, including sourcing the Internet community to gather small private donations, that is, a revenue stream which is typically named “crowdfunding”.
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In this chapter, we apply the framework of business model analysis to review this crowdfunding mechanism. We describe the business model characteristics of several industry cases. Next, we decide whether such a crowdfunding platform can sustain itself and whether it is able to collect sufficient funds for the production of movies. We argue that the platform could obtain enough funds from the general public for smaller-budget productions such as short films or documentaries. A movie crowdfunding platform could also collect enough income from advertising to make itself sustainable. Charging a premium membership fee to movie producers would yield negligible revenues and is hence not advisable. Further, we find that the platform will never amass the needed production budget in a small market, especially for the production of long feature films. However, a crowdfunding platform could be more valuable when combined with other means of financing smaller movie formats and could perform a marketing purpose alongside its central crowdfunding role." (Abstract)
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"Roots of the New Arab Film deals with the generation of filmmakers from across North Africa and the Middle East who created an international awareness of Arab film from the mid-1980s onwards. These seminal filmmakers experienced the moment of national independence first-hand in their youth and reta
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ined a deep attachment to their homeland. Although these aspiring filmmakers had to seek their training abroad, they witnessed a time of filmic revival in Europe - Fellini and Antonioni in Italy, the French New Wave, and British Free Cinema. Returning home, these filmmakers brought a unique insider/outsider perspective to bear on local developments in society since independence, including the divide between urban and rural communities, the continuing power of traditional values and the status of women in a changing society. As they made their first films back home, the feelings of participation in a worldwide movement of new, independent filmmaking was palpable." (Publisher description)
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"Contemporary Latin American Cinema investigates the ways in which neoliberal measures of privatization, de-regularization and austerity introduced in Latin America during the 1990s have impacted film production and film narratives. The collection examines the relationship between economic policies
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and the films that depict recent transformations in many Latin American countries, demonstrating how contemporary Latin American film has not only criticized and resisted, but also benefitted from neoliberal advancements. Based on films produced in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru since 2010, the fourteen case studies illustrate neoliberalism's effects, from big industries to small national cinemas. It also shows the new types of producers that have emerged, and the novel patterns of distribution, exhibition and consumption that shape and influence the Latin American filmscape." (Publisher description)
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"This briefing summarises the proceedings of the third workshop in a project to stimulate dialogue between European and Arab stakeholders about European screen content for young children of Arab heritage who are living in Europe through forced migration." (Page 28)
"Wie wird koloniale Gewalt historisch thematisiert? Wie gehen dokumentarische Filme und geschichtspolitische Diskurse mit ihr um? Robert Stock nähert sich diesen Fragen mit kritischem Blick auf den Kolonialkrieg Portugals in Afrika und den nationalen Befreiungskampf Mosambiks. Dabei fokussiert er s
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eine Untersuchung auf die Gestaltung, Funktion und Reflexion historischer Zeugenschaft. Am Material von bislang wenig beachteten Filmproduktionen über die Dekolonisierungsprozesse zwischen Mosambik und Portugal seit den 1970er Jahren analysiert er die sich verändernden Deutungsweisen der kolonialen Vergangenheit." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"The 16th Afrika Film Festival Köln will present 75 new films from Africa – with a wider focus on migration within Africa Let’s start with some numbers: there are currently 68 million displaced people worldwide, most of whom now reside in countries bordering their homelands. The wide range of r
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easons for their displacement is well known: war, democratic defi cits and economic deprivation. Only a small percentage of the world’s refugees (around 17 percent) make it to the comparatively rich Europe, while 30 percent of all refugees live in sub-Saharan African countries. If we include the Maghreb, the percentage of the world’s refugees accommodated in Africa swells to around 50. Migration within Africa is one of the key focal points of this year’s Afrika Film Festival Köln, with 25 fi lms in the main programme and many others in the supporting events that directly or indirectly address the issue." (Introduction)
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"Das Ziel dieses Artikels ist es: 1) den Kontext der Einführung des Kinos in Kamerun zu beschreiben und 2) die Produktion und Nutzung deutscher Kinofilme in Kamerun zu erfassen und zu analysieren. Wir werden uns insbesondere mit der Frage der Entstehung des Kinos in Kamerun während der deutschen K
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olonialzeit beschäftigen und mit seinen Pionieren." (Seite 1)
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"This chapter examines how the Aide aux cinemas du monde fund and the Produire au Sud workshop aim at strengthening France’s central position in the co-production of world cinemas. The Aide aux cinemas du monde provides funding to French co-producers of films from all over the world, while the Pro
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duire au Sud workshop, linked to the Festival des 3 Continents in Nantes, works towards developing cooperation between European film professionals and emerging film-makers from the South. Drawing on an analysis of film policy documents and data, field observation and recent film festival studies, this chapter describes how both initiatives support co-production, in parallel to developing and exporting professional practices and discourses that shape the co-production culture developed in France since the 1980s." (Abstract)
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