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Global Perspectives on Amateur Film Histories and Cultures
Edited by Masha Salazkina and Enrique Fibla
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Book Presentation:
For too long, the field of amateur cinema has focused on North America and Europe. In Global Perspectives on Amateur Film Histories and Cultures, however, editors Masha Salazkina and Enrique Fibla-Gutiérrez fill the literature gap by extending that focus and increasing inclusivity.
Through carefully curated essays, Salazkina and Fibla-Gutiérrez bring wider meaning and significance to the discipline through their study of alternative cinema in new territories, fueled by different historical and political circumstances, innovative technologies, and ambitious practitioners. The essays in this volume work to realize the radical societal democratization that shows up in amateur cinema around the world. In particular, diverse contributors highlight the significance of amateur filmmaking, the exhibition of amateur films, the uses and availability of film technologies, and the inventive and creative approaches of filmmakers and advocates of amateur film.
Together, these essays shed new light on alternative cinema in a wide range of cities and countries where amateur films thrive in the shadow of commercial and conventional film industries.
About the authors:
Masha Salazkina is Research Chair in Transnational Media Arts and Cultures and Associate Professor at Concordia University. She is author of In Excess: Sergei Eisenstein's Mexico and editor (with Lilya Kaganovsky) of Sound, Speech, Music in Soviet and Post-Soviet Cinema. Enrique Fibla-Gutiérrez is a Researcher and Curator. He works at the Elias Querejeta Zine Escola in San Sebastian and the Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB).
Press Reviews:
"This important volume opens up what has, to date, been the relatively Anglocentric field of amateur film studies to encompass a broad range of media cultures, practices, and geographies."
-Alice Lovejoy, author of Army Film and the Avant Garde
"These essays capture moments, instances, and movements that give depth and resonance to the study of alternative cinematic practices."
-Mark Neumann, author of Recording Culture and On the Rim
"Traversing an impressive range of historical and geographical case studies, Global Perspectives on Amateur Film Histories and Cultures brilliantly challenges the long-standing divides that have traditionally shaped the field of cinema studies—between amateur and professional, private and public, leisure and politics, domestic and avant-garde, and margin and center. In so doing, it reveals the scope of research that is possible when we let go of preconceptions about what kind of media is historically valuable and worthy of study. A convincing demonstration of the rewards of a deeply materialist approach to cinema studies."
-Zoë Druick, Professor and Director of the School of Communication, Simon Fraser University
"Salazkina and Fibla-Gutiérrez's wonderful collection provides a new and exciting account of the amateur's place in film and media history. These fascinating and meticulously researched essays reveal how amateur cinema is linked to key moments of global film history and prefigured the rise of contemporary user-generated media making practices. The significance of this book will resonate far beyond amateur film research."
-Charles Tepperman, author of Amateur Cinema: The Rise of North American Moviemaking, 1923-1960
"This inspiring volume shows us just how much we risk missing when we ignore nonprofessional media's globally varied past and prolific present. Using amateur films from around the world to raise fundamental questions about cinema's genealogy and function, these original essays offer nothing short of a reconfiguration of film history. This book changes the way we think of world cinemas."
-Priya Jaikumar, author of Where Histories Reside: India as Filmed Space
See the publisher website: Indiana University Press
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