Lotte Hoek is a lecturer in social anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. She received her Ph.D. from the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, and her research focuses on visual culture and the anthropology of media.

Hoek's journeys to towns with considerable distance from Dhaka are a thrill to read; viewings of Mintu the Murderer are vivid in no small terms, and the local color of hanging out at tea stalls and backrooms were page-turners. This is an inspired book, showing the life of a film from its conception to exhibition, or in this case to its ban. -- Lalitha Gopalan, University of Texas at Austin The theoretical and literary sophistication of this study of the oscillating visibility of obscenity in Bangladesh is remarkable. Taking one film as her 'field site' and using effervescent prose, Hoek presents a superb study of the production-consumption continuum of 'unstable celluloid' and richly conjures Dhaka's film studios, location shooting, and the country's small town movie theaters. The artisanal inventiveness of Bangladeshi purveyors of 'hot spice' provides a welcome counterweight to 'gentrified' Bollywood. Hoek's exceptional ethnography of the abject, the dilapidated, the mofussil, demonstrates magnificently how cinema, like almost everything else, fails to live up to its own ideals. -- Christopher Pinney, University College London Students of media anthropology and film studies cannot afford to miss out on this spectacular book. South Asia

• Note on Transliteration, Translation, and Pseudonyms Acknowledgments Introduction: Before Mintu the Murderer 1. Writing Gaps : The Script of Mintu the Murderer 2. A Handheld Camera Twisted Rapidly: The Technology of Mintu the Murderer 3. Actress /Character: The Heroines of Mintu the Murderer 4. Cutting and Splicing: The Editor and Censor of Mintu the Murderer 5. Noise: The Public Sphere of Mintu the Murderer 6. Unstable Celluloid: The Exhibiti on of Mintu the Murderer Conclusion: After Mintu the Murderer Notes Bibliography Index

Lotte Hoek is a lecturer in social anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. She received her Ph.D. from the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, and her research focuses on visual culture and the anthropology of media.

Hoek's journeys to towns with considerable distance from Dhaka are a thrill to read; viewings of Mintu the Murderer are vivid in no small terms, and the local color of hanging out at tea stalls and backrooms were page-turners. This is an inspired book, showing the life of a film from its conception to exhibition, or in this case to its ban. -- Lalitha Gopalan, University of Texas at Austin The theoretical and literary sophistication of this study of the oscillating visibility of obscenity in Bangladesh is remarkable. Taking one film as her 'field site' and using effervescent prose, Hoek presents a superb study of the production-consumption continuum of 'unstable celluloid' and richly conjures Dhaka's film studios, location shooting, and the country's small town movie theaters. The artisanal inventiveness of Bangladeshi purveyors of 'hot spice' provides a welcome counterweight to 'gentrified' Bollywood. Hoek's exceptional ethnography of the abject, the dilapidated, the mofussil, demonstrates magnificently how cinema, like almost everything else, fails to live up to its own ideals. -- Christopher Pinney, University College London Students of media anthropology and film studies cannot afford to miss out on this spectacular book. South Asia

• Note on Transliteration, Translation, and Pseudonyms Acknowledgments Introduction: Before Mintu the Murderer 1. Writing Gaps : The Script of Mintu the Murderer 2. A Handheld Camera Twisted Rapidly: The Technology of Mintu the Murderer 3. Actress /Character: The Heroines of Mintu the Murderer 4. Cutting and Splicing: The Editor and Censor of Mintu the Murderer 5. Noise: The Public Sphere of Mintu the Murderer 6. Unstable Celluloid: The Exhibiti on of Mintu the Murderer Conclusion: After Mintu the Murderer Notes Bibliography Index

Lotte Hoek is a lecturer in social anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. She received her Ph.D. from the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, and her research focuses on visual culture and the anthropology of media.

Hoek's journeys to towns with considerable distance from Dhaka are a thrill to read; viewings of Mintu the Murderer are vivid in no small terms, and the local color of hanging out at tea stalls and backrooms were page-turners. This is an inspired book, showing the life of a film from its conception to exhibition, or in this case to its ban. -- Lalitha Gopalan, University of Texas at Austin The theoretical and literary sophistication of this study of the oscillating visibility of obscenity in Bangladesh is remarkable. Taking one film as her 'field site' and using effervescent prose, Hoek presents a superb study of the production-consumption continuum of 'unstable celluloid' and richly conjures Dhaka's film studios, location shooting, and the country's small town movie theaters. The artisanal inventiveness of Bangladeshi purveyors of 'hot spice' provides a welcome counterweight to 'gentrified' Bollywood. Hoek's exceptional ethnography of the abject, the dilapidated, the mofussil, demonstrates magnificently how cinema, like almost everything else, fails to live up to its own ideals. -- Christopher Pinney, University College London Students of media anthropology and film studies cannot afford to miss out on this spectacular book. South Asia

• Note on Transliteration, Translation, and Pseudonyms Acknowledgments Introduction: Before Mintu the Murderer 1. Writing Gaps : The Script of Mintu the Murderer 2. A Handheld Camera Twisted Rapidly: The Technology of Mintu the Murderer 3. Actress /Character: The Heroines of Mintu the Murderer 4. Cutting and Splicing: The Editor and Censor of Mintu the Murderer 5. Noise: The Public Sphere of Mintu the Murderer 6. Unstable Celluloid: The Exhibiti on of Mintu the Murderer Conclusion: After Mintu the Murderer Notes Bibliography Index