Colonial Documentary Film in South and South-East Asia

Ian Aitken was a chair professor, and is now an Emeritus Professor, affiliated to Hong Kong Baptist University. His areas of expertise lie in British documentary film studies, the British official film in South-East Asia, and theories of cinematic realism. His most recent book publications include Cinematic Realism (2020), The Major Realist Film Theorists (ed.), The British Official Film in South-East Asia (2016), and The Colonial Documentary Film in South and South-East Asia (2016). Camille Deprez is Research Assistant Professor, Academy of Film, Hong Kong Baptist University. A specialist of Indian documentary cinema and French colonial documentary in Asia, she is the co-editor of Post-1990 Documentary: Reconfiguring Independence (Edinburgh University Press, 2015).

• Table of ContentIntroductionPart 1. Issues of Colonialism, Late Colonialism and IndependenceChapter 1. The People’s Action Party Government of Singapore and Berita Singapura (Ian Aitken)Chapter 2. Merdeka for Malaya: Imagining Independence Across the British Empire (Tom Rice)Chapter 3. The Language of Counterinsurgency in Malaya: Dialectical Soundscapes of Salvage and Warfare (Peter J. Bloom)Chapter 4. Figures of Empire: American Documentaries in the Philippines (José B. Capino)Part 2. Missionary Films and Christian EvangelismChapter 5. Two Films and a Coronation: The Containment of Islam in Flores in the 1920s (Sandeep Ray) Chapter 6. Paradoxical Legacies: Colonial Missionary Films, Corporate Philanthropy in South Asia and the Griersonian Documentary Tradition (Annamaria Motrescu-Mayes)Chapter 7. Conversion, Salvation and the ‘Civilising Mission’: Christian Missions and Documentary Film in India (1900-1960) (Emma Sandon)Part 3. Documentary representations: Projections, Idealised and Imaginary ImagesChapter 8. Screening the Revolution in Rural Vietnam: Guerrilla Cinema across the Mekong Delta (Thong Win)Chapter 9. Ho Chi Minh in France: An Early Independence Newsreel (Dean Wilson)Chapter 10. Archives of the Planet: French Elitist Representations of Colonial India (Camille Deprez)Chapter 11. ‘Sufficient Dramatic or Adventure Interest’: Authenticity, Reality and Violence in Pre-War Animal Documentaries from South-East Asia (Timothy P. Barnard)List of ContributorsIndex

A powerful book that addresses the relationship between documentary films and postcolonialism in South-East Asia...the book’s attempt to push the reflection on the relationship between visuality and colonial legacies beyond pre-determined styles and discourses is noteworthy.