Global Perspectives on Amateur Film Histories and Cultures

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).

"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

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Global Perspectives on Amateur Film Histories and Cultures / Masha Salazkina and Enrique Fibla-GutiérrezPart I: Medium Specificity and Expanded Media Ecologies1. Understanding (Amateur) Cinema: Epistemology and Technology / Benoît Turquety2. Crossing the Amateur Line: The Lesson of Even—As You and I / James Rosenow3. "I Give You a Toast to the Pioneers!" The Movie Maker Ten Best Video Competition 1982-1983 / Graeme R. Spurr4. From Insiders to Outsiders: Tracing Amateurism in Chinese Independent Documentary of the 1990s and the 2000s / Margherita VivianiPart II: Institutions, Industry, and the State5. Seeking Advice: A Political Economy of Israeli Commemorative Home Videos / Laliv Melamed6. Amateur Film in the Factory: Forms and Functions of Amateur Cinema in Corporate Media Culture / Yvonne Zimmermann7. The Ambitions of Amateur Film in Vichy France / Julie Guillaumot8. On the Amateur Origins of Fernando Birri's Documentary School of Santa Fe / Mariano Mestman and Christopher MoorePart III: Politics of Legitimization and Subversion9. The Wind from the South: Experiences of Substandard Filmmaking in Galicia in the 1970s / Pablo La Parra-Pérez10. Super 8 in Mexico / Jesse Lerner11. The Videogiornale: Social Movements and Amateur Media Technologies in Bologna Between the Late 1980s and the Early 1990s / Diego Cavallotti12. "A Vital Human Place" for the Counterculture: Fifth Estate and Amateur Film Culture in Detroit, 1965-1967 / Joseph DeLeon13. Ingvars Leitis's Subversive Ethnographic Documentaries, 1975–1989: Cover Stories and National Representation in Soviet Latvia / Inese StrupulePart IV: Transnational Networks: Amateur Cinema Travels14. Worldly Matters: Distributed Histories of Tunisian Amateur Cinema and the Screening of Nontheatrical Film / Samhita Sunya15. Early International Super 8 Film Festivals: The Case of Caracas 1976-1980 / Isabel Arredondo16. A Gift to Mother: "The Most Universally Appealing Kind of Film That Any Amateur Can Hope to Make" / Maria Vinogradova17. Postcards from Yiddishland: Amateur Filmmaking and Vernacular Yiddish Culture / Rachel Webb JekanowskiIndex