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After the end of World War II when many Southeast Asian nations gained national independence, and up until the Asian Financial Crisis, film industries here had distinctive and colourful histories shaped by unique national and domestic conditions.
Southeast Asia on Screen: From Independence to Financial Crisis (1945-1998) addresses the similar themes, histories, trends, technologies and sociopolitical events that have moulded the art and industry of film in this region, identifying the unique characteristics that continue to shape cinema, spectatorship and Southeast Asian filmmaking in the present and the future. Bringing together scholars across the region, chapters explore the conditions that have given rise to today's burgeoning Southeast Asian cinemas as well as the gaps that manifest as temporal belatedness and historical disjunctures in the more established regional industries.
List of contents
Introduction: Southeast Asia on Screen: From Independence to Financial Crisis (1945-1998) (Khoo), Section 1. Independence and Post-WW2 Filmmaking: Nation-building, Modernity and Golden Eras (Ainslie), Chapter 1. A Nation Imagined Differently: The Critical Impulse of 1950s Indonesian Cinema (Yngvesson and Alarilla), Chapter 2. The 1950s Filipino Komiks-to-Film Adaptation During the Studio Era (Arriola), Chapter 3. Pearl Tears on the Silver Screen: War Movies and Expanding Burmese Militarism in the Early Independence Years (Ferguson), Chapter 4. Gender, Nation and Spatial Mobility in ON TOP OF THE WAVE, ON TOP OF THE WIND (Nguyen), Chapter 5. Spectacularity of Nationalism: War, Propaganda and Military in Indonesian Cinema During the New Order Era (Irawanto), Section 2. Key directors (Khoo), Chapter 6. Two Auteurs in the Indonesian Cinema of the 1970s and 1980s: Sjuman Djaya and Teguh Karya (Hanan and Soehadi), Chapter 7. Hussain Haniff and the place of the auteur in popular Malay cinema (Driskell), Chapter 8. Ratana Pestonji and Santi Vina: Exploring the 'Master' of Thai Cinema During Thailand's 'American Era' (Ainslie), Section 3. The Popular (Barker), Chapter 9. Locating Mike de Leon in Philippine Cinema (Campos), Chapter 10. Nora Aunor vs Ferdinand Marcos - Popular Youth Films of 1970s Philippine Cinema (Sebastiampillai), Chapter 11. Transnational Exploitation Cinema in Southeast Asia: The Cases of Indonesia and The Philippines (Barker and Imanjaya), Chapter 12. Mapping Regional Ambivalence and Anxieties in THEY CALL HER=CLEOPATRA WONG (Siddique), Chapter 13. The Boonchu Comedy Series: Pre-90s Thai Localism and Modernity (Khuankaew), Index
About the author
Gaik Cheng Khoo is Deputy Dean of Research and Sustainability at the Sunway University, Malaysia. She initiated the first Association of Southeast Asian Cinemas Conference in 2004 and has authored and edited numerous books, book chapters and journal articles on cinema and filmmaking in Malaysia and Southeast Asia.
Thomas Barker is Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham Malaysia. He researches and writes on Indonesian cinema, transnational cinema, and China-Malaysia screen connections. He is the author of
Indonesian Cinema after the New Order: Going Mainstream (Hong Kong University Press, 2019).
Mary Jane Ainslie is Associate Professor in Film and Media Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo. She specializes in culture and media throughout Southeast Asia, with specific emphasis upon Thailand and Malaysia. She is the co-editor of
Thai Cinema: The Complete Guide (I.B. Tauris, 2018).
