Contemporary Radical Film Culture

Steve Presence is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at UWE Bristol, UK. His research spans activist film culture, documentary and the UK film and television industries, and he is currently working on an AHRC-funded study of the UK’s feature documentary film industry. He convened the Radical Film Network in 2013.Mike Wayne is Professor in Film and Media Studies at Brunel University, UK. His research covers radical film practices, media and cultural studies, Marxist theory and questions of class inequality and its cultural impacts.Jack Newsinger is Assistant Professor in Cultural Industries and Media at the University of Nottingham, UK. He has published widely on cultural and media policy, cultural labour and diversity, and has been involved in the Radical Film Network since 2015.

A newly, always, and again-relevant corner of contemporary and historic media culture—global radical film culture—is provocatively explored by its theorists and practitioners in Contemporary Radical Film Culture. Contributing to and driving these debates and practices while attending to the affordances of re-emergence through networking and networks, the authors, all members of the Radical Film Network, build new connections and learn from empowering histories because of the crises of our times, and in hopes of informing the future.Alexandra Juhasz, Distinguished Professor of Film, Brooklyn College, CUNYThis first major collection of radical moving-image practices in the 21st century marks an aggressive new phase in the resistance against capitalist commodity culture. Remarkable for its intelligence, originality, accessibility, and especially for its global comprehensiveness, it will be of great value for activists, scholars and teachers, and indeed everyone interested in the struggle for a more equal and less exploitative socialist world. David E. James, Professor, Division of Cinema & Media Studies, University of Southern California

• Introduction ; Part I: Issues in Radical Film Culture, Past and Present ; 1. ‘"Admin will make or break the rebellion": Building the Radical Film Network’ Steve Presence ; 2. ‘Imagining change: A history of radical film in the USA’ Chuck Kleinhans ; 3. ‘Feminist documentary: Distribution, exhibition and interactive platforms’ Julia Lesage ; 4. ‘Video activism on the social web’ Chris Tedjasukmana and Jens Eder ; 5. ‘TV interventions: Artists, activists and alternative media’ Ieuan Franklin ; Part II: Interventions in practice and politics ; 6. ‘Spaces of the possible: Developing the Radical Film Network in Scotland’ David Archibald ; 7. ‘Ciutat Morta/ Dead City: agency, ICTs and critical urban documentary in the Spanish context’ Ana Rodriguez Granell ; 8. ‘The practice and politics of radical documentary circulation: A case-study of tactical media in India’ Shweta Kishore ; 9. ‘Activist filmmaking in Africa, with a focus on Cameroonian Jean-Marie Teno’ Mette Hjort ; 10. ‘Radical cinema in Israel and Palestine after Oslo: Unrealistic hopes and unwarranted expectations’ Haim Bresheeth ; 11. ‘Scratch video revisited’ Nick Cope ; 12. ‘A funny thing happened on the way to utopia - The Workshop Declaration (1982-1989)’ Andy Robson ; Part III: Festivals and Exhibition ; 13. ‘Film, interrupted: Alternative screening practices for a radical film culture’ Elena Boschi ; 14. ‘Re-thinking human rights film festivals: A radical perspective’ Anthony Killick ; 15. ‘Frames of counterpower: The politics of film programming’ Ezra Winton ; 16. ‘‘‘Communist international of queer films": The radical culture of the Beijing Queer Film Festival’ Hongwei Bao ; 17. ‘Star and Shadow Cinema and before: Radical screening culture in Newcastle upon Tyne’ Christo Wallers ; Part IV: Interviews ; 18 ‘Artists’ moving image’ Oliver Ressler interviewed by Mike Wayne ; 19. ‘European feature docs’ Moviemienta/Aris Chatzistefanou interviewed by Jack Newsinger, Steve Presence and Mike Wayne ; 20. ‘Video-activism: Reel News’ An interview with Sean Dey by Eamonn Kelly ; 21. ‘Community access’ Echo Park Film Center/Paolo Davanzo and Lisa Marr interviewed by Steve Presence ; 22. ‘"We need critical magazine, debates, spaces!" Third cinema in Morocco’ Nadir Boumouch interviewed by Steve Presence