Transnational Australian Cinema: Ethics in the Asian Diasporas

(Paperback)

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To date, there has been little sustained attention given to the historical cinema relations between Australia and Asia. This is a significant omission given Australias geo-political position and the place Asia has held in the national imaginary, oscillating between threat and opportunity. Many accounts of Australian cinema begin with the 1970s film revival, placing Asian-Australian cinema within a post-revival schema of multicultural or diasporic cinema and ignoring Asian-Australian connections prior to the revival. Transnational Australian Cinema charts a history of Asian-Australian cinema, encompassing the work of diasporic Asian filmmakers, films featuring images of Asia and Asians, films produced by Australians working in Asias film industries or addressed at Asian audiences, and Asian films that use Australian resources, including locations and personnel. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach, the book considers diasporic Asian histories, the impact of government immigration and film policies on representation, and the new aesthetic styles and production regimes created by filmmakers who have forged links, both through roots and routes, with Asia. This expanded history of Asian-Australian cinema allows for a renewed discussion of so-called dormant periods in the nations film history. In this respect, the mapping of an expanded history of cinema practices contributes to our broader aim to rethink the transnationalism of Australian cinema.

Reviews

Far more than the first major study of a supposedly minor cinema too long unexplored, Transnational Australian Cinema is a thought adventure of exceptional brilliance and daring. The strong transnationalism of its field-expanding method not only brings us rich historical discoveries but also creates new ways of thinking representation together with policy, viewership with social governance, ethnic identities with resource allocation, and film forms with production ecologies. This book redefines the field of national cinema studies and in the process it expands the capacities of film history to illuminate the great debates of our time. -- Meaghan Morris, Professor of Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney
Transnational Australian Cinema: Ethics in the Asian Diasporas is a welcome addition to scholarship on both Australian and transnational cinema. It makes significant and new arguments about the changing representation of Asia and Asian subjects in Australian cinema, and it proposes a useful approach to these subjects that allows them to be viewed in new ways. It will be of great interest not only to students and scholars of Australian and transnational cinema, but also to those in Australian studies, and particularly in Asian studies. -- Ben Goldsmith, Queensland University of Technology

Author Bio

Olivia Khoo is senior lecturer in film and television studies at Monash University. Belinda Smaill is a senior lecturer in film and television studies at Monash University. Audrey Yue is associate professor in screen and cultural studies at the University of Melbourne.