The Colonial Documentary Film in South and South-East Asia
Edited by Ian Aitken and Camille Deprez
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Book Presentation:
The first anthology to focus primarily on the use of official and colonial documentary films in the South and South-East Asian regions
Based on rare archival documents and films, this anthology is the first to focus primarily on the use of official and colonial documentary films in the South and South-East Asian regions. Drawing together a range of international scholars, the book sheds new light on historical, theoretical and empirical issues pertaining to the documentary film, in order to better comprehend the significant transformations of the form in the colonial, late colonial and immediate post-colonial period. Covering diverse geographical and colonial contexts in countries like Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Hong Kong, and focusing on under-researched or little-known films, it demonstrate the complex set of relations between the colonisers and the colonised throughout the region.
Key features
• Case studies of films and series include: the Berita Singapura film series; Merdeka for Malaya; Ho Chi Minh in France; Flores Film; Ria Rago; Archives of the Planet series
• Focuses on regions in South and South-East Asia including: Singapore; Malaya; India; Indonesia; Vietnam; and the Philippines
• Analyses missionary films, travelogues, newsreels, TV series and guerrilla documentaries
• To find out more visit Hong Kong Baptist University’s research website on the Documentary Film in South and South-East AsiaContributors
• Ian Aitken, Hong Kong Baptist University
• Timothy P. Barnard, National University of Singapore
• Peter J. Bloom, University of California, Santa Barbara
• José B. Capino, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
• Camille Deprez, Hong Kong Baptist University
• Annamaria Motrescu-Mayes, University of Cambridge
• Sandeep Ray, Rice University
• Tom Rice, University of St Andrews
• Emma Sandon, Birkbeck, University of London
• Dean Wilson, University of Montreal
• Thong Win, University of California, Santa Barbara
About the authors:
Ian Aitken is Professor of Film Studies at the School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University. His publications include Hong Kong Documentary Film (2014), Lukácsian Film Theory and Cinema: An Analysis of Georg Lukács’ Writings on Film 1913-1971 (2012), The Major Realist Film Theorists, (2016), Colonial Documentary Film in South and South-East Asian (2016) and Cinematic Realism (2020).
Camille Deprez is Research Assistant Professor, Academy of Film, Hong Kong Baptist University. A specialist of Indian documentary cinema and French colonial documentary in Asia, she is the co-editor of Post-1990 Documentary: Reconfiguring Independence (Edinburgh University Press, 2015).
Press Reviews:
A powerful book that addresses the relationship between documentary films and postcolonialism in South-East Asia...the book’s attempt to push the reflection on the relationship between visuality and colonial legacies beyond pre-determined styles and discourses is noteworthy.– GIANMARCO MANCOSU, University of Warwick, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television
A powerful book that addresses the relationship between documentary films and postcolonialism in South-East Asia...the book’s attempt to push the reflection on the relationship between visuality and colonial legacies beyond pre-determined styles and discourses is noteworthy.– GIANMARCO MANCOSU, University of Warwick, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television
Documentary cinema and related forms of state produced film framed and facilitated the colonization of South and South-East Asia, and this important new volume explores that history across the region and the twentieth century. By doing so it makes a significant and singular contribution to the burgeoning scholarly work on the political uses of cinema, particularly in sustaining imperialism and across the partial, halting, transition to "post-colonial" states.'– Dr Lee Grieveson, University College London
See the publisher website: Edinburgh University Press
> From the same authors:
Cinematic Realism (2020)
Lukács, Kracauer and Theories of the Filmic Real
by Ian Aitken
Subject: Theory
The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film (2017)
Dir. Ian Aitken
Subject: Genre > Documentary
Film and Reform (2016)
John Grierson and the Documentary Film Movement
by Ian Aitken
Subject: Director > John Grierson
Post-1990 Documentary (2015)
Reconfiguring Independence
Dir. Camille Deprez and Judith Pernin
Subject: Genre > Documentary
Lukácsian Film Theory and Cinema (2012)
A Study of Georg Lukács' Writing on Film 1913-1971
by Ian Aitken
Subject: Film Analysis
Realist Film Theory and Cinema (2006)
The Nineteenth-Century Lukácsian and Intuitionist Realist Traditions
by Ian Aitken
Subject: Theory
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