KinotopiasFilm, Place and Belonging in a Bordered World

Examines film’s vital role in making and unmaking geopolitical and cultural borders

• Based on original research across the borders of Ireland and the UK, Spain and Morocco and Turkey and Syria as well as among diasporic filmmakers
• Covers hundreds of films from different genres as well as understudied film practices such as amateur film, participatory filmmaking and film activism
• Goes well beyond studies of border representation, also covering production, distribution and reception of film
• Offers an interdisciplinary framework to capture relations between film, place and belonging

Combining original research with insights from social sciences, philosophy and film theory, it argues that film can effectively capture both material and socio-cultural dimensions of borders and their underlying tensions.

From popular cinema using border surveillance optics to militant and amateur filmmaking by borderlanders, Kinotopias: Film, Place and Belonging in a Bordered World traces diverging strategies that use film to enforce or overcome borders, demonstrating how film can become a political instrument for belonging. Introducing the concept of debordering film, the book urges a rethinking of how film is made, studied and understood, foregrounding neglected forms, voices and spatial experiences.

Through an ambitious conceptual framework stemming from research on highly politicised borders in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, Kinotopias makes a strong case for the social and political power of film as a tool of resistance and reimagination.