This thesis reconsiders the work of art filmmakers in the People’s Republic of China between 1989 and 2001. These dates bookend the decade of the 1990s, comprising two defining moments in the reform era: the Tiananmen Square political crisis in 1989, and the entry of China into the WTO and the global market economy in 2001. The 1990s is therefore approached in this research as a transitional decade, in which the future direction of China was being decided. The term ‘art film’ is used to identify a distinct mode of film practice, characterised by a peripheral position, a clear directorial voice, and an emphasis on aesthetics. This rubric therefore incorporates films made by a range of auteur directors, rather than solely the ‘independent’ or ‘underground’ works commonly assessed in studies of the decade. By examining the representational modes used by art filmmakers in the 1990s, filmic innovations can be seen to constitute an artistic response to the restrictions placed on representation by the State. This thesis argues that historical reassessment was a key factor in the innovation of cinematic representation in the 1990s. Utilising a cultural history approach, the thesis engages in close textual analysis of seventeen films, identifying and contextualising the representational conventions drawn on by filmmakers. The thesis is structured around five thematic chapters, each dealing with a cluster of films focused on similar content. The first chapter examines filmic reassessments of China’s socialist history, and concludes that the limitations of the official narrative provided opportunities for the assertion of alternative histories. The subsequent chapters develop on the concept of historical reassessment by looking at changing modes of cinematic representation in relation to rural populations, women and gender, urban regeneration, and youth culture. By engaging in a wide-ranging survey of how key themes were represented in art films in the 1990s, the thesis reveals the critical role which historical reassessment played in pushing directors to new levels of artistry and experimentation in their filmmaking. This thesis concludes that by questioning the cinematic forms used historically to represent these issues and social groups, Chinese art filmmakers achieved a new level of artistic independence in their work by the end of the decade.

Orientador: Marcius César Soares Freire / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Artes / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-27T13:45:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Araujo_JulianoJosede_D.pdf: 16332564 bytes, checksum: f98c8578603358e2a303c0790db93366 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / Resumo: Criado em 1986 pelo indigenista e documentarista Vincent Carelli, o projeto Vídeo nas Aldeias (VNA) objetiva fortalecer as identidades, patrimônios culturais e territoriais dos povos indígenas através dos recursos audiovisuais. O VNA atua como uma escola de cinema para os povos indígenas brasileiros por meio de oficinas de formação em audiovisual realizadas nas aldeias e na sede do projeto, em Olinda, no estado de Pernambuco. Desempenha também um papel fundamental como entidade responsável pela captação de recursos, produção e distribuição dos documentários. Nesse contexto, esta pesquisa analisa 28 documentários da série "Cineastas indígenas" realizados entre 1999 e 2011 no âmbito do projeto VNA. Trata-se de seis curtas-metragens e 22 médias-metragens de cineastas indígenas das etnias Ashaninka, Huni Kui, Kisedje, Kuikuiro, Mbya-Guarani, Panará e Xavante. Essa produção audiovisual de não-ficção é considerada como uma prática de autoetnografia no documentário, à medida que ao conceder a câmera para os indígenas lhes é permitido o que dizer, quando, onde e como filmar, a partir de uma perspectiva interna, na qual eles apresentam suas aldeias, seu cotidiano, sua história, suas festas e rituais, como também os problemas sociais que enfrentam. Nesse sentido, a tese propõe a categoria de documentário autoetnográfico para o corpus analisado, tendo como questões norteadoras: Quais são os procedimentos de criação, métodos de trabalho e condições de realização dos documentários autoetnográficos do projeto VNA? E as posturas éticas, opções estéticas e técnicas neles presentes? Qual a importância desses filmes para as comunidades indígenas que deles participam? Com que finalidade eles são realizados? A partir da análise fílmica, em uma perspectiva textual e contextual, isto é, estabelecendo um diálogo entre elementos internos (imagem, som etc.) e externos dos documentários (entrevistas com realizadores indígenas, equipe do VNA, sujeitos filmados, conceitos das teorias do cinema antropológico e documentário etc.), apresenta-se o estudo do corpus enfatizando, respectivamente, as dimensões ética, estética e política da produção audiovisual de não-ficção do projeto VNA. Considera-se essas três dimensões do discurso fílmico como fundamentais para se compreender melhor a categoria de documentário autoetnográfico que, para além de um conceito dos estudos pós-coloniais, acredita-se constituir em uma tomada de posição e reflexão do campo do cinema diante dos filmes dos realizadores indígenas. A análise dos documentários autoetnográficos do projeto VNA revela: um processo de realização cinematográfica (preparação, filmagem e montagem) no qual a autoria é compartilhada, sendo a ética um elemento presente em todas as etapas; o emprego e a modulação de diferentes gestos estéticos com uma forte influência dos cinemas direto/verdade, mas também questões que emergem com força na produção audiovisual de não-ficção contemporânea, como a encenação e o uso das imagens de arquivo; o papel político desempenhado pelos documentários, tendo em vista que se direcionam aos espectadores não-indígenas, seus enunciatários, para discutir a relação entre história oficial versus história não-oficial, a identidade e cultura indígenas, ou ainda para denunciar, reivindicar e lhes dar visibilidade / Abstract: Created in 1986 by the indigenist and documentary filmmaker Vincent Carelli, the project Vídeo nas Aldeias ¿ VNA (Video in the Villages) aims at reinforcing the identities, cultural and territorial patrimonies of indigenous peoples by means of audiovisual resources. VNA works as a cinema school and provides Brazilian indigenous peoples with workshops on audiovisual production, both in the villages and at the project headquarters, located in the city of Olinda, in the state of Pernambuco. It also plays a fundamental role as the responsible entity for the fundraising, production and distribution of documentaries. In this context, this research analyzes 28 documentaries from "Indigenous Filmmakers", a series produced by VNA from 1999 to 2011. This set of documentaries includes 6 short films and 22 medium-length films by indigenous filmmakers of the ethnic groups Ashaninka, Huni Kui, Kisedje, Kuikuiro, Mbya-Guarani, Panará, and Xavante. This nonfiction audiovisual production is seen as a practice of autoethnography inside the documentary: once the Indians are provided with cameras, they are also allowed to decide what to say, when, where and how to shoot. From an inner perspective, they present their villages, their daily life, their histories, their rituals and traditional events, as well as the social problems they face. That being said, this dissertation argues that the corpus analyzed in this work fit into the category of autoethnographic documentary and presents the following questions: What are the creation procedures, working methods and realization conditions involved in the production of VNA¿s autoethnographic documentaries? And what are the ethical stances, the aesthetic and the technical options presented by them? What is the importance of these films for the indigenous communities that take part in them? For what purpose are they made? The study of the corpus is based on filmic analysis, from textual and contextual perspectives, that is, establishing a dialogue between internal (image, sound etc.) and external (interviews with indigenous filmmakers, the VNA¿s staff, the filmed subjects, concepts from the anthropological cinema and documentary film theories etc.) elements of the documentaries. It also underscores the ethical, aesthetical and political dimension of VNA¿s nonfiction audiovisual production. These three dimensions of the filmic discourse are seen as fundamental for a better comprehension of the autoethnographic documentary ¿ a category which is not only a concept from the postcolonial studies, but also a way through which cinema takes a stance and reflects on the production of indigenous filmmakers. The analysis of VNA¿s autoethnographic documentaries reveals: a filmmaking process (preparation, filmmaking and montage) in which authorship is shared and the ethics an element present in all these steps; the employment and modulation of different aesthetic gestures, a strong influence from the direct cinema/cinéma vérité, alongside issues that emerge with force in the contemporary nonfiction audiovisual production, such as the staging and the use of archival footage; the political role played by the documentaries, since they are addressed to the non-indigenous public in order to discuss the relation between official and unofficial history, indigenous identity and culture, or even to denounce, claim and give visibility to indigenous peoples / Doutorado / Multimeios / Doutor em Multimeios

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This practice-based research addresses the challenges that face the animation practitioner in the Arab region. In engaging with this topic it highlights the contrast with international animation producers, and also seeks to analyse how Arab animation cinema is represented and understood in the West. It introduces Arab animation history, and the animation industry as it currently exists in the Middle East. I suggest the reasons why there have been so few animated shorts and feature-length films successfully produced in the Arab world, in spite of their being a rich literary and cultural heritage. This study reveals a number of cultural, religious, political and economic issues related to Arab animation cinema, both in relation to its history and in regard to its place domestically and internationally. This research explores how YouTube and other social media became the main platform for Arab animation artists to distribute their political works during and since the 'Arab Spring' in the Middle East. The immediate consequence of this is an explosion in the exposure of Arab animation artists and their work to the world, in comparison to the very limited opportunities and freedoms of the past. Moreover, this study seeks to open up a conversation about the possibility of showing animated films that include Arabic content to Western audiences. This is complex in the sense that the place and presence of Arab animated stories are affected by how the representation is perceived within its production context and conditions of exhibition. My research will result in original knowledge, to be made available to Arab filmmakers, the Arab film industry and international academics addressing and championing animation, by engaging with conceptual questions, creating a critical practice methodology, and applying research-led practice methods.

Tam, Wai Fung. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Filmography: p. 133-136. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 123-129). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Acknowledgements --- p.iii / Abstract --- p.iv-vi / Table of Contents --- p.vi-viii / Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 1: --- Background´ؤMembership of the Chinese “Sixth Generation´ح Directors --- p.7-23 / Chapter -- --- The Early Stage of the “Sixth Generation´ح Cinema --- p.7 / Chapter -- --- Current Commercial Turn among the “Sixth Generation´ح Directors --- p.14 / Chapter Chapter 2: --- Discourses on Chinese “Sixth Generation´ح Cinema --- p.24-61 / Chapter -- --- Analytical Framework --- p.24 / Chapter -- --- Scholastic Discourse on “Sixth Generation´ح Cinema --- p.27 / Chapter -- --- The Differences between Western Political Interpretations and the Chinese Populist Discourse on “Sixth Generation´ح Cinema --- p.35 / Chapter -- --- The Western Discourse´ؤA Liberal Political Definition --- p.36 / Chapter -- --- Chinese Populist Discourse on “Sixth Generation´ح Cinema --- p.43 / Chapter -- --- New Bom Generation --- p.52 / Chapter -- --- Independent Filmmaking´ؤDirectors' Views on the Naming of “Sixth Generation´ح --- p.55 / Chapter Chapter 3: --- "The Interrelationship between the Filmmakers, Discourses and Social Context" --- p.62-86 / Chapter -- --- Evaluations on the Discourses of “Sixth Generation´ح --- p.62 / Chapter -- --- The Dominant Features of the “Sixth Generation´ح Cinema --- p.65 / Chapter -- --- Relationship between the “Sixth Generation´ح Cinema and Chinese Socio-political Context --- p.70 / Chapter -- --- How “Independent´ح the “Sixth Generation´ح Filmmakers are? --- p.82 / Chapter Chapter 4: --- Examining the Subversive Functions of the Naming of “Sixth Generation´ح --- p.86-114 / Chapter -- --- Political Subjectivity of the “Sixth Generation´ح Directors and its Relation with the Event --- p.86 / Chapter -- --- The Split Subject of the “Sixth Generation´ح Directors --- p.97 / Conclusion --- p.115-122 / Bibliography --- p.123-132 / Filmogarphy --- p.133-136

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Interpretive textual analysis, informed by a feminist perspective, is applied to five independent films written and directed by female filmmakers in order to understand to what extent the rhetorical construction of motherhood as presented in the films deviates from or supports a patriarchal Western vision. This study provides a rich textual analysis of Amreeka (2009), Frozen River (2008), Waitress (2006), The Dead Girl (2006), and Lovely and Amazing (2001); five films that each considers the role of contemporary mothering as a central part of its plot. Each film has been distributed within ten years of the inception of this study, is considered an independent film, has received some degree of critical acclaim, and is written and directed by a female filmmaker. Using a feminist critical interpretive lens, this study investigates the public and private sphere identification of the mothers, the mother-child relationships, and the family systems that work to unveil a vision of motherhood in contemporary independent film and identify the extent to which this vision challenges or adheres to traditional representations. The readings of these films rely on theoretical insights of feminist film criticism and feminist theory. In addition, feminist rhetorical perspectives provide the framework to reveal the broader cultural implications of the representation of contemporary motherhood in public discourse. The analysis reveals a subversive reading of contemporary mothering characterized by the rejection of domesticity and other traditional mothering ideologies. Informed by resistance theory, the findings suggest the female filmmakers utilize the symbolic inversion tactic as a tool to resist their subordinate status. The subversive discourses give voice to female filmmakers attempting to negotiate power in a traditionally patriarchal forum by invoking a rhetoric of resistance. However, the rhetorical construction of the “indie” mother is characterized by maternal sacrifice and maternal autonomy which ultimately forces women to negotiate their mothering identity in relation to the hegemonic childrearing model of intensive mothering. The production of contradictory messages illustrates an attempt to adapt to existing conditions rather than transform the patriarchal system suggesting that independent film is a dynamic medium that both reflects hegemonic discourse while remaining open to ideological variance.

At a time of major political disruption in Italy, this dissertation aims to explore the landscape of contemporary Italian Cinema in connection with the nation’s new demographic trends and social configurations. Focusing on a selected, inherently representative group of filmmakers, the current study proposes a new form of film theory that sees the emergence and recognition of multi-ethnic filmmaking in a hitherto largely monocultural context as an indicator of a profound cultural transformation rather than a mere aesthetic tendency. The critical terminology I propose, “punctuated identitties,” document the characteristics of contemporary filmmakers, since they cannot be easily defined under the categories established by previous critical vocabularies. While these multi-ethnic filmmakers are part of a larger trend in European filmmaking as a whole, and hence constitute a case study of the evolution of a particular trend within individual national cinemas, my aim is to show how their punctuated identities complicate and color the Italian mediascape, and perhaps add a pluralistic dimension to the most recent chapter in the story of one of the most influential national cinemas. The filmmakers analyzed are selected according to specific elements and not on any categorization as first-and-second-generation immigrants. The present analysis includes two immigrants who have consciously chosen Italy as their homeland (Ferzan Özpetek and Jonas Carpignano), a migrant other who rejects nationality (Laura Halilovic), a political exile who relishes a certain sense of freedom in his Italian sojourn (Fariborz Kamkari), and a naturalized son of immigrants (Suranga Katugampala). All move in a fluid and conceptual space that creates a new path inside the traditional domain of national cinema, establishing the validity of others’s points of views and proving that coexistence can enrich even established and influential art forms. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

According to the latest Celluloid Ceiling Report, conducted by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, only 7% of all directors working on the top 250 films in the United States in 2014 were women. These bleak statistics no doubt replicate the condition of women in countless other national cinemas. It is, therefore, critical that more attention be given to the women who do manage to succeed in the male-dominated film industry. In my dissertation, I examine the work of two major French women filmmakers, Catherine Breillat and Claire Denis, who have resisted the kind of marginalization and even erasure of women’s presence which this data represents, achieving along the way distinction not just in the French, but in the global cinema context. I analyze their work primarily through the lens of auteur theory and the Cixousian notion of the feminine. For the purpose of this work, I define an auteur as a filmmaker who has established a distinctive but evolving style as well as a set of thematic preoccupations across a significant number of films and a considerable span of time and whose films are recognizable no matter the subject they treat or the context in which they are made. At its inception, auteur theory signaled a radical break with the tradition of film adaptations and literary screenplays that either did not understand or did not care to exploit the specificity of the filmic medium. Yet, in spite of the revolutionary aspects of auteurism, it has remained somewhat regressive in its recognition of and engagement with gender problematics. The putative gender neutrality of auteurism is, in practice, an assumption of masculinity. Female film directors who achieve auteur status (a minority compared to the number of men given the same consideration) are then marked by their difference, they are not simply auteurs but female auteurs. While this designation is potentially limiting, I assert that it is, in fact, a valuable designation, since it has opened up a space for female filmmakers to rewrite dominant cultural narratives and from a feminine perspective. Claire Denis and Catherine Breillat consistently practice a feminine form of filmmaking, that is, filmmaking that opposes through form and representation, the logical, teleological narratives and adherence to patriarchal values associated with traditional filmmaking. While traditional, masculine filmmaking is designed to halt the proliferation of meaning, feminine filmmaking allows for ellipses, creates a space for the unsaid and the unknowable; it asks questions but does not answer them; it allows the reader or viewer to participate in the production of meaning. These are the kinds of films that Denis and Breillat are making and they need to be recognized for their exemplary artistic contributions as well as the space they have created for others to challenge the status quo in the film industry.

The concern with the following arguments started during a study of national and international cinemas, from the desire to account for a cinema that internationally was doing well, but was undervalued domestically. The aims were to account for the renewal of Italian filmmaking from 1988, the New Italian cinema, and understand the conditions behind this renewal. The thesis identifies in the historical theme and in the recurrence of features from Italian cinema history elements of coherence with previous cinema production. The first consideration that emerges is that a triangulation between a new generation of filmmakers, their audience and recent history shaped the recovery of Italian cinema from 1988. A second consideration is that no discussion of Italian cinema can be separated from a discussion of that which it represents: Italian society and politics. This representation has not only addressed questions of identity for a cohort of spectators, but on occasions has captured the attention of the international audience. Thus the thesis follows a methodologic approach that positions the texts in relation to certain traditions in Italian filmmaking and to the context by taking into consideration also industrial factors and social and historical changes. By drawing upon a range of disciplines, from political history to socio-psychological studies, the thesis has focussed on representation of history and memory in two periods of Italian film history: the first and the last decade of twentieth century. The concern has been not so much to interpret the films, but to understand the processes that made the films and how spectators have applied their knowledge structures to make meaning of the films. Thus the thesis abstains from ascribing implicit meanings to films, but acknowledges how films project cultural contingencies. This is because film is shaped by production conditions and cultural and historical circumstances that make the film intelligible. As Bordwell stated in Making Meaning, "One can do other things with films besides 'reading' them" (1989, p. xiii). Within this framework, the thesis proposes a project that understands history film within the norms that govern Italian filmic output, those norms that regulate conditions of production and consumption and the relation between films from various traditions.

Chicano cinema is a genre of film that was born out of the Chicano Movement in the late 60’s, however not much has been written about the exhibition of Chicano film. The Chicano Film Festival began in 1976 in San Antonio, Texas to showcase Chicano filmmakers and their work. The Festival, later renamed, the CineFestival is the longest running Latino film festival in the U.S. and for my report I question how the Festival shared the work of Chicanos and promoted a Chicano discursive space. To answer these questions I turned to the Festival film programs and local periodicals. After my research, I found that the CineFestival served a purpose for Chicano cinema because it not only screened Chicano films, but it also promoted a Chicano discourse and therefore a very unique discursive space for Chicano media. However, I found that the Festival’s direction and motivations change year after year. In turn these changes, influence the Festival’s promotion or lack of promotion and screening of Chicano film. The CineFestival, even though promotes itself as a “Latino” film festival, has an obligation to sustain what it cultivated in 1976; Chicano cinema. This genre of film and its history runs the risk of being forgotten. I ask, if our own film community doesn’t screen or talk about Chicano film, then who will? It is in this report that I further explore these questions and CineFestival’s role in Chicano cinema. / text