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Short Films from a Small Nation
Danish Informational Cinema 1935–1965
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Book Presentation:
The first book-length study in English of a national corpus of state-sponsored informational film
For three decades, state-sponsored short filmmaking educated Danish citizens, promoted Denmark to the world, and shaped the careers of renowned directors like Carl Th. Dreyer. The first book-length study in English of a national corpus of state-sponsored informational film, this book traces how Danish shorts on topics including social welfare, industry, art and architecture were commissioned, funded, produced and reviewed from the inter-war period to the 1960s. Examining the life cycle of a representative selection of films, and discussing their preservation and mediation in the digital age, this book presents a detailed case study of how informational cinema is shaped by, and indeed shapes, its cultural, political and technological contexts.
Key features
• Combines close textual analysis of a broad range of films with detailed accounts of their commissioning, production, distribution and reception in Denmark and abroad
• Considers a broad range of genres and sub-genres, including industrial process films, public information films, art films, the city symphony, the essay film, and many more
• Maps international networks of informational and documentary films in the post-war period
• Explores the role of informational film in Danish cultural and political history
Access additional resources on the Danish Film Institute website
Claire Thomson discusses Danish public information films on the BBC podcast
About the Author:
Dr C. Claire Thomson is Professor of Cinema History at University College London (UCL), where she is the Director of Film Studies and teaches Nordic cinema and cultural history, as well as translation from the Scandinavian languages. Her previous publications include the monographs Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen (U Washington P, 2013) and Short Films from a Small Nation: Danish Informational Cinema 1935–1965 (EUP 2018), the edited volume Northern Constellations: New Readings in Nordic Cinema (Norvik, 2006), and numerous articles on short films, film and public health, multisensory cinema and the work of Carl Th. Dreyer and Thomas Vinterberg. She is an editor of the journals Scandinavica and Kosmorama.
See the publisher website: Edinburgh University Press
> From the same author:
A History of Danish Cinema (2021)
Dir. C. Claire Thomson, Isak Thorsen and Pei-Sze Chow
> On a related topic:
The Danish Directors 2 (2010)
Dialogues on the New Danish Fiction Cinema
Dir. Mette Hjort, Eva Jørholt and Eva Novrup Redvall
Danish Directors (2001)
Dialogues on a Contemporary National Cinema
Dir. Mette Hjort and Ib Bondebjerg
The Danish Directors 3 (2014)
Dialogues on the New Danish Documentary Cinema
Dir. Mette Hjort, Ib Bondebjerg and Eva Novrup Redvall
Visions and Victims (2024)
Art Melodrama in the Films of Carl Th. Dreyer
Subject: Director > Carl Theodor Dreyer
Cinematography of Carl Theodor Dreyer (2018)
Performative Camerawork, Transgressing the Frame
Subject: Director > Carl Theodor Dreyer
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