Palgrave Pivot
Cinema, Cross-Cultural Collaboration, and Criticism is a manifesto for a developing area, one that provides a new model for reading films about indigeneity. Davinia Thornley investigates specific production partnerships in Canada, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, using the framework of scholarly and popular criticism to draw conclusions from these collaborative case studies. In doing so, her book makes two very specific contributions to knowledge: it provides several industry-specific examples of collaboration in production, and it answers the question of how first world critics can approach the films created by indigenous and minority groups. Encouraging scholars to think about indigenous media more critically reorients indigenous perspectives to a central place in the critical debate.
The films discussed include the world-renown ISUMA Production's Before Tomorrow; Lousy Little Sixpence, the first documentary to address Australia's 'Stolen Generations'; and contemporary offerings from Aotearoa New Zealand.
