Cinema, Cross-Cultural Collaboration, and Criticism : Filming on an Uneven Field

Cinema, Cross-Cultural Collaboration, and Criticism provides a platform for a new politics of criticism, a collaborative ethos for a different kind of relationship to cross-cultural cinema that invites further conversations between filmmakers and audiences, indigenous and others. Cinema, Cross-Cultural Collaboration, and Criticism is a manifesto for a developing area, one that provides a new model for reading films about indigeneity. Davinia Thornley investigates specific production partnerships in Canada, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, using the framework of scholarly and popular criticism to draw conclusions from these collaborative case studies. In doing so, her book makes two very specific contributions to knowledge: it provides several industry-specific examples of collaboration in production, and it answers the question of how first world critics can approach the films created by indigenous and minority groups. Encouraging scholars to think about indigenous media more critically reorients indigenous perspectives to a central place in the critical debate. The films discussed include the world-renowned ISUMA Production's Before Tomorrow; Lousy Little Sixpence, the first documentary to address Australia's 'Stolen Generations'; and contemporary offerings from Aotearoa New Zealand Cover -- Half-Title -- Series -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Introduction - Cinematic Cross-Cultural Collaboration: Filming on an Uneven Field -- 2 "An Instrument of Actual Change in the World": Engaging a New Collaborative Criticism through Isuma/Arnait Productions' Film, Before Tomorrow -- 3 "My Whole Area Has Started to Be about What's Left Over": Alec Morgan, "Stolen Histories," and Critical Collaboration on the Australian Aboriginal Documentary, Lousy Little Sixpence -- 4 "A Space Being Right on That Boundary": Critiquing Cross-Cultural Collaboration in Aotearoa New Zealand Cinema -- 5 Conclusion - Modelling Collaborative Criticism: What Does It Mean to Collaborate Cross-Culturally in Cinema? -- Select Bibliography -- Index Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction — Cinematic Cross-Cultural Collaboration: Filming on an Uneven Field....Pages 1-22 “An Instrument of Actual Change in the World”: Engaging a New Collaborative Criticism through Isuma/Arnait Productions’ Film, Before Tomorrow....Pages 23-50 “My Whole Area Has Started to Be about What’s Left Over”: Alec Morgan, “Stolen Histories,” and Critical Collaboration on the Australian Aboriginal Documentary, Lousy Little Sixpence....Pages 51-73 “A Space Being Right on That Boundary”: Critiquing Cross-Cultural Collaboration in Aotearoa New Zealand Cinema....Pages 74-102 Conclusion — Modeling Collaborative Criticism: What Does It Mean to Collaborate Cross-Culturally in Cinema?....Pages 103-117 Back Matter....Pages 118-134 "Davinia Thornley presents a detailed and logical exploration of cross-cultural filmmaking practices. Her description of 'collaborative criticism', bringing together diverse ways of knowing and working, is entirely persuasive, and her instantiation of transnational and global perspectives are of the current critical moment. This is a very fine book."--Arnold Krupat, Sarah Lawrence College, USA Annotation Cinema, Cross-Cultural Collaboration, and Criticism provides a platform for a new politics of criticism, a collaborative ethos for a different kind of relationship to cross-cultural cinema that invites further conversations between filmmakers and audiences, indigenous and others