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ReFocus: The International Directors Series

ReFocus: The Films of Rachid Bouchareb

Edited by Michael Gott and Leslie Kealhofer-Kemp

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£100.00

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About this book

Examines the diverse oeuvre of internationally recognized French-Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb
  • Devotes attention to Bouchareb’s under-explored films, including the Oscar- nominated Poussières de vie/Dust of Life (1994), those shot in English, and recent made-for- television films
  • Offers an interdisciplinary approach to Bouchareb’s work, drawing on gender studies, cinema studies, French and francophone studies, Islamic studies, and history, among others
  • Highlights connections between Bouchareb’s diverse films while offering a broader exploration of the arc of the director’s career
  • Considers Bouchareb in the context of new critical explorations of cinéma-monde as a global auteur whose work – in French, English and beyond – extends beyond the narrow French national context

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.

Reviews

This remarkable volume offers a necessary study on a filmmaker whose name is firmly established in the French cinematic landscape, while bringing into light new perspectives to approach his work, as well as his lesser-studied films. The reader will also appreciate the engagement with aspects — beyond his film corpus — involved in filmmaking, namely the production, distribution, and reception of his work. While the collection focuses on Bouchareb, this volume will be useful as an analytical tool to study other filmmakers.
With this politically astute, wide-ranging collection, Bouchareb finally gets his critical due. He is revealed brilliantly as a pivotal figure in French cinema reinvesting genres to challenge the official scripts of colonial history and immigration, as well as ethnic conflict and terrorism, and promote a more inclusive national identity.
Table of contents

Illustrations

A Note on Translations

Contributors

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Rachid Bouchareb: A Global French Filmmaker

Michael Gott and Leslie Kealhofer-Kemp

I: A Multidimensional Oeuvre

  1. Rachid Bouchareb’s Cinema as a ‘Vehicle for Encounters’: Cultural Mixings and the Pre-Production Process

    2. Leslie Kealhofer-Kemp

  2. The Road from Baton Rouge: Mapping Rachid Bouchareb’s Transnational Mobile Movies

    3. Michael Gott

  3. Questions of Gender and Embodiment in the Intimiste Films of Rachid Bouchareb

    4. Kaya Davies Hayon

  4. Genre and Universalism in the Films of Rachid Bouchareb

    5. David Pettersen

  5. The American Dimensions of Rachid Bouchareb’s Cinema

    6. Nabil Boudraa and Ahmed Bedjaoui

  6. We Could Be Heroes: ‘Arabs’ Becoming Brave in Rachid Bouchareb’s Cinema

    7. Julien Gaertner

  7. Globalisation, Cinema, and Terrorism in Rachid Bouchareb’s Films: London River, Baton Rouge and Little Senegal

    8. Mireille RoselloII: Case Studies　

  8. Aesthetics of Confinement: Space, Memento Mori, and the Recording of History in Rachid Bouchareb’s Poussières de vie/Dust of Life

    9. Michael O’Riley

  9. The Door of No Return: A Cinema of (Up)rooting and Decentring in Rachid Bouchareb’s Little Senegal

    10. Gemma King

  10. Rachid Bouchareb’s Hors la loi/Outside the Law: A Lesson in History, Reception and Artistic Licence

    11. Jennifer Howell

  11. Postcolonial Feminism, Gender, and Genre in Rachid Bouchareb’s Just like a Woman

    12. Anne Donadey

  12. Relations of Disjuncture in a ‘World-in-Motion’: Rachid Bouchareb’s La Voie de l'ennemi/Two Men in Town

Valérie K. Orlando

Appendix: Filmography of Rachid Bouchareb

Index

About the contributors

Michael Gott

Michael Gott is Associate Professor of French and Film and Media Studies at the University of Cincinnati, where he teaches courses in European Studies, Film and Media Studies, and French-language culture and cinema. He is the author of French-language Road Cinema: Borders, Diasporas and ‘New Europe’ (EUP, 2016) and co-edited Cinéma-monde: Decentred Perspectives on Global Filmmaking in French (EUP, 2018), Open Roads, Closed Borders: the Contemporary French-Language Road Movie (Intellect, 2013) and East, West and Centre: Reframing European Cinema Since 1989 (EUP, 2014).

Leslie Kealhofer-Kemp

Leslie Kealhofer-Kemp is Associate Professor of French and Film at the University of Rhode Island and the author of Muslim Women in French Cinema: Voices of Maghrebi Migrants in France (Liverpool University Press, 2015). Her research focuses on representations of minority-ethnic characters in French cinema and on television, as well as on the films and careers of actors and actresses of North and West African descent in France.

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