Political Cinemas – serie

The Housing Film examines how a century of realities and possibilities in domestic living have been profiled and foregrounded through studies and representations of Housing in the medium of Film. The filmic investigations, analysis and exposes of homes and our way of occupying them, and their possible effect on behaviour, in documentaries like Housing Problems (1935) and Paul Sng's Dispossession: The Great Council Housing Swindle (2017), propaganda films like Cumbernauld: Town for Tomorrow (1970), dramas like Cathy Come Home (1966) and features like High Rise (2017), to understand how closely the tow film and housing - have grown and developed together, each conditioning the understanding and the range of possibilities of the other. This study will examine how these histories are in fact intertwined, will analyse and assess the mutual effects of Housing and Film and propose and define a specific category of 'The Housing Film.'

The Housing Film examines how a century of realities and possibilities in domestic living have been profiled and foregrounded through studies and representations of Housing in the medium of Film. The filmic investigations, analysis and exposés of homes and our way of occupying them, and their possible effect on behaviour, in documentaries like Housing Problems (1935) and Paul Sng’s Dispossession: The Great Council Housing Swindle (2017), propaganda films like Cumbernauld: Town for Tomorrow (1970), dramas like Cathy Come Home (1966) and features like High Rise (2017), to understand how closely the tow – film and housing - have grown and developed together, each conditioning the understanding and the range of possibilities of the other. This study will examine how these histories are in fact intertwined, will analyse and assess the mutual effects of Housing and Film and propose and define a specific category of ‘The Housing Film.’

While sizable literature exists on the themes, issues and voices that constitute resistance in historical Indian documentary cinema, less is known about contemporary modes of resistance in Indian documentary. This volume identifies languages and practices of resistance constructed by Indian documentary practitioners located in contemporary global and national contexts organised by majoritarian political discourse, rising social inequalities, tightening media regulatory mechanisms and variable access to digital technologies. Extending its analytical lens beyond textual politics, the volume offers an original conceptualisation of how we identify, mobilise, and recuperate acts of resistance as both represented in documentary and those represented by the organisation of documentary practice e.g., documentary exhibition, curation, education, and criticism. Combining scholarly essays and practitioner writing, the volume offers a timely reconsideration of how central debates and issues of power and representation in documentary may be studied as objects of analysis and as subjective accounts of individual experience, decisions, and actions relating to documentary aesthetics and practice.

While sizable literature exists on the themes, issues and voices that constitute resistance in historical Indian documentary cinema, less is known about contemporary modes of resistance in Indian documentary. This volume identifies languages and practices of resistance constructed by Indian documentary practitioners located in contemporary global and national contexts organised by majoritarian political discourse, rising social inequalities, tightening media regulatory mechanisms and variable access to digital technologies. Extending its analytical lens beyond textual politics, the volume offers an original conceptualisation of how we identify, mobilise, and recuperate acts of resistance as both represented in documentary and those represented by the organisation of documentary practice e.g., documentary exhibition, curation, education, and criticism. Combining scholarly essays and practitioner writing, the volume offers a timely reconsideration of how central debates and issues of power and representation in documentary may be studied as objects of analysis and as subjective accounts of individual experience, decisions, and actions relating to documentary aesthetics and practice.

For over twenty years, director Apichatpong Weerasethakul has received international acclaim for the sensuous pacing, folkloric narratives and creative resistance to authoritarian politics buried within an expansive body of work. Situated on the fault line of narrative filmmaking and contemporary art, his work flickers between obscurity and critique, leaning into the ambiguities of contemplative art cinema to challenge political orders, resurface repressed national memories and even reimagine the structure of cinema itself.Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Contemplation and Resistance is a major study of the screen works of one of contemporary cinema's most influential directors. Through deconstruction of his major works placed in cultural, historical and political context, Contemplation and Resistance chronicles the creative and political interventions of one of the most influential political filmmakers of the twenty-first century.

In recent years British cinema has utilised the iconic image of the council estate as an emblematic shorthand for defining the supposedly dysfunctional character of the working-class people who reside there. As a spatial determinant, it has come to signify a whole group of people in the popular imaginary as anti-social, violent and workshy. Drawing on the latest research into class and British cinema, the chapters in this edited collection explore classed identities in relation to the spaces which they occupy, both onscreen and off.The chapters in this collection shift the spatial location of the working class away from the council estates in which they are visually and symbolically contained to explore alternative spaces where their complexities, struggles and resistance to the systemic cultural and political discourses that define them can be foregrounded.

Combining original research with insights from social sciences, philosophy and film theory, it argues that film can effectively capture both material and socio-cultural dimensions of borders and their underlying tensions. From popular cinema using border surveillance optics to militant and amateur filmmaking by borderlanders, Kinotopias: Film, Place and Belonging in a Bordered World traces diverging strategies that use film to enforce or overcome borders, demonstrating how film can become a political instrument for belonging. Introducing the concept of debordering film, the book urges a rethinking of how film is made, studied and understood, foregrounding neglected forms, voices and spatial experiences. ​​​​​​​Through an ambitious conceptual framework stemming from research on highly politicised borders in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, Kinotopias makes a strong case for the social and political power of film as a tool of resistance and reimagination.

Offers a unique first-hand account of Ken Loach's working methodsProvides a detailed study of the making of The Angels' ShareOffers a wider analysis of Loach's films and his film-related political activitiesDraws upon research from the British Film Institute's Loach ArchiveDemonstrates how a detailed knowledge of film making practices and methods can enhance film analysis and criticismTracking Loach presents a ground-breaking and unique contribution to the study of cinema. Archibald was granted unprecedented access to observe one of world cinema's most celebrated and controversial filmmakers, Ken Loach, while he was making the 2012 feature The Angels Share, which received The Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.This book draws on this knowledge to offer a first-hand account of the director's celebrated working methods, supplemented with insights gleaned from the British Film Institute's Loach archive, and analysis of his wider output and film-related political activity.Archibald has been 'Tracking Loach' for over three decades, as film viewer, film critic and film academic, and this inside perspective not only offers fresh insights into Loach's films and how they are made, but also highlights the benefits of production studies to the understanding of cinema more broadly.

Offers a unique first-hand account of Ken Loach's working methodsProvides a detailed study of the making of The Angels' ShareOffers a wider analysis of Loach's films and his film-related political activitiesDraws upon research from the British Film Institute's Loach ArchiveDemonstrates how a detailed knowledge of film making practices and methods can enhance film analysis and criticismTracking Loach presents a ground-breaking and unique contribution to the study of cinema. Archibald was granted unprecedented access to observe one of world cinema's most celebrated and controversial filmmakers, Ken Loach, while he was making the 2012 feature The Angels Share, which received The Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.This book draws on this knowledge to offer a first-hand account of the director's celebrated working methods, supplemented with insights gleaned from the British Film Institute's Loach archive, and analysis of his wider output and film-related political activity.Archibald has been 'Tracking Loach' for over three decades, as film viewer, film critic and film academic, and this inside perspective not only offers fresh insights into Loach's films and how they are made, but also highlights the benefits of production studies to the understanding of cinema more broadly.

Looking Beyond Neoliberalism explores how cinema is responding to the economic crisis that sprang to public attention in 2008 and continues to shape our politics and societies. Bringing French and francophone Belgian films into dialogue with carefully selected theories, O’Shaughnessy develops insights and an analytical framework that will become important resources for other scholars of contemporary cinema. This book explores cinema's capacity to register mutations in subjectivity, the material grounds for identity construction and the machinic dimension of neoliberal subjection. It also probes its capacity to imagine alternative economies and identities and an exit from neoliberal labour. By developing fresh insights into political cinema, this book provides engages with cinema’s response to neoliberalism in crisis.