Film and television offer important insights into social outlooks on borders in France and Europe more generally. This book undertakes a visual cultural history of contemporary borders through a film and television tour. It traces on-screen borders from the Gare du Nord train station in Paris to Calais, London, Lampedusa and Lapland. It contends that different types of mobilities and immobilities (refugees, urban commuters, workers in a post-industrial landscape) and vantage points (from borderland forests, ports, train stations, airports, refugee centers) are all part of a complex French and European border narrative. It covers a wide range of examples, from popular films and TV series to auteur fiction and documentaries by well-known directors from across Europe and beyond. -- .

Gott examines Eliot's The Waste Land (1922) in conjunction with Gustave Flaubert's La Tentation de Saint Antoine (1874). He provides a highly original reading of both texts and argues that a stylistic affinity exists between the two works.

Whilst T.S. Eliot's status as a canonical modernist poet is secure, his legacy remains the subject of much critical debate. Gott examines Eliot's 'The Waste Land' (1922) in conjunction with Gustave Flaubert's 'La Tentation de Saint Antoine' (1874). He provides a highly original reading of both texts and argues that a stylistic affinity exists between the two works, which derives from the authors' shared fascination for the ascetic saint.

This is the first collection of essays about French-language road movies, a particularly rich yet critically neglected cinematic category. These films, the contributors argue, offer important perspectives on contemporary French ideas about national identity, France's former colonies, Europe, and the rest of the world. Taken together, the essays illustrate how travel and road motifs have enabled directors of various national origins and backgrounds to reimagine space and move beyond simple oppositions such as Islam and secularism, local and global, home and away, France and Africa, and East and West.

ReFocus: The Films of Rachid Bouchareb is the first book-length study of the internationally recognized director's films. Bouchareb was one of France's first filmmakers of North African descent and his career as a director and producer now spans over thirty-five years. Remarkably varied in their themes, formal elements and narrative settings, Bouchareb's work has engaged with and reflected on a variety of crucial social, political and historical issues; from the role of colonial troops in the French army during the Second World War, to terrorism in contemporary Europe. This volume examines Bouchareb's films from an interdisciplinary perspective, exploring key influences on his output and considering new theoretical approaches to his filmmaking.

Over the past two decades road cinema has become an increasingly popular form of expression for European directors. Focusing on a corpus of films from France, Belgium and Switzerland, including works by Ismael Ferroukhi, Bouli Lanners, Aki Kaurismaki and Jacqueline Audry amongst many others, French-language Road Cinema contends that nowhere is the impulse to remap the spaces and identities of 'New Europe' more evident than in French-language cinema. Drawing on mobility studies, cultural geography and film theory, this innovative work sketches out the flexible yet distinctive parameters of contemporary French-language road cinema, and argues for an understanding of the 'road movie' not as a genre but as a thematic and formal template that crosses cinematic categories to bring together a wide array of films that narrate the movements of migrants, tourists and business executives.

ReFocus: The Films of Rachid Bouchareb is the first book-length study of the internationally recognized director's films. Bouchareb was one of France's first filmmakers of North African descent and his career as a director and producer now spans over 35 years. Remarkably varied in their themes, formal elements and narrative settings, Bouchareb's work has engaged with and reflected on a variety of crucial social, political and historical issues; from the role of colonial troops in the French army during the Second World War, to terrorism in contemporary Europe. This volume examines Bouchareb's films from an interdisciplinary perspective, exploring key influences on his output and considering new theoretical approaches to his filmmaking.

Twenty-five years have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism in Eastern Europe, and ten years have passed since the first formerly communist states entered the EU. An entire post-Wall generation has now entered adulthood, yet scholarship on European cinema still tends to divide the continent along the old Cold War lines. In East, West and Centre the world's leading scholars in the field assemble to consider the ways in which notions such as East and West, national and transnational, central and marginal are being rethought and reframed in contemporary European cinema. Assessing the state of post-1989 European cinema, from (co)production and reception trends to filmic depictions of migration patterns, economic transformations and socio-political debates over the past and the present, they address increasingly intertwined cinema industries that are both central (France, Germany) and marginal (Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania) in Europe. This is a ground-breaking and essential read, not just for students and scholars in Film and Media Studies, but also for those interested in wider European Studies as well.

The first book devoted to a wide-ranging study of developments in global French-language cinema, from Quebec to Mauritania and from Belgium to Cambodia, Cinema-monde picks up on the lively scholarly debates generated by the related topic of litterature-monde. Extending the scope of this debate to cover the thriving and diverse area of international French-language cinema, this innovative book also considers cinema from France within the context of global production. With contributions from an international range of specialists, and with considerations of works by contemporary directors like Rachid Bouchareb, Abderrahmane Sissako and Rithy Panh, Cinema-monde explores the porous borders around francophone spaces and the ways in which languages and identities 'travel' in contemporary cinema.

A wide-ranging study of developments in global French-language cinemaThe first book devoted to a wide-ranging study of developments in global French-language cinema, from Quebec to Mauritania and from Belgium to Cambodia, 'Cinema-monde' picks up on the lively scholarly debates generated by the related topic of litterature-monde. Extending the scope of this debate to cover the thriving and diverse area of international French-language cinema, this innovative book also considers cinema from France within the context of global production. With contributions from an international range of specialists, and with considerations of works by contemporary directors like Rachid Bouchareb, Abderrahmane Sissako and Rithy Panh, 'Cinema-monde' explores the porous borders around francophone spaces and the ways in which languages and identities 'travel' in contemporary cinema.ContributorsJoseph Mai (Clemson University)Mireille Rosello (University of Amsterdam)Laura Reeck (Allegheny College)Dayna Oscherwitz (Southern Methodist University)Leslie Kealhofer-Kemp (University of Rhode Island)Michael Gott (University of Cincinnati)Vlad Dima (University of Wisconsin) Gemma King (The University of Melbourne)Thibaut Schilt (College of the Holy Cross)Leila Ennaili (Central Michigan University)Alison Rice (University of Notre Dame)Jaime Steele (University of Exeter)Michelle Stewart (SUNY-Purchase)Carina Yervasi (Swarthmore College)Bill Marshall (University of Stirling)Lucy Mazdon (University of Southampton)Will Higbee (University of Exeter)

Over the past two decades road cinema has become an increasingly popular form of expression for European directors. Focusing on a corpus of films from France, Belgium and Switzerland, including works by Ismael Ferroukhi, Bouli Lanners, Aki Kaurismaki and Jacqueline Audry amongst many others, French-language Road Cinema contends that nowhere is the impulse to remap the spaces and identities of 'New Europe' more evident than in French-language cinema. Drawing on mobility studies, cultural geography and film theory, this innovative work sketches out the flexible yet distinctive parameters of contemporary French-language road cinema, and argues for an understanding of the 'road movie' not as a genre but as a thematic and formal template that crosses cinematic categories to bring together a wide array of films that narrate the movements of migrants, tourists and business executives.

Twenty-five years have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism in Eastern Europe, and ten years have passed since the first formerly communist states entered the E.U. An entire post-Wall generation has now entered adulthood, yet scholarship on European cinema still tends to divide the continent along the old Cold War lines.
In East West and Centre the world's leading scholars in the field assemble to consider the ways in which notions such as East and West, national and transnational, central and marginal are being rethought and reframed in contemporary European cinema. Assessing the state of post-1989 European cinema, from (co)production and reception trends to filmic depictions of migration patterns, economic transformations and socio-political debates over the past and the present, they address increasingly intertwined cinema industries that are both central (France and Germany) and marginal in Europe (Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania).
This is a ground-breaking and essential read, not just for students and scholars in film and media studies, but also for those interested in wider European studies as well.