Film, Storytelling, and Social Transformation demonstrates what the study of film can uncover regarding a wide range of pressing social justice issues. It explores the potential of film to engage with, and even affect, social change.The collection explores the relationship between cinema and social justice through three interconnected themes: practice, place, and embodiment. Across diverse cultural, political, and historical contexts, contributors examine how film can challenge injustice, amplify marginalized voices, preserve collective memory, and inspire social change. Chapters range from studies of documentary activism, environmental radicalism and refugee representation to analyses of stateless cinema, Third Cinema traditions, popular culture, and labour inequalities within the film industry. Together, these essays demonstrate the power of moving images not only to represent justice but also to participate actively in its pursuit.This book will be of interest to researchers in the fields of film studies, media and cultural studies and social justice in general, and film-theory, social documentary, media for social change and the intersection of cinema and activism in particular.
Martin Hall is an Associate Professor of Film Studies at York St John University, UK. His research focuses primarily on European Art Cinema, American Independence, and Cinema and Social Justice.
1. Introduction – Martin HallSection One: Justice Through Practice2. The Force Of Fury As An Emancipatory Intent - Javadi Hamideh3. Accept Yourself: Creation of a mode of practice for documentaries focusing on unheard voices – Rhys Davies4. How to Make a Film about Environmental Radicalism: Reichardt’s Night Moves, Goldhaber’s How to Blow Up a Pipeline, and Modernist Exhaustion – Daniel Dufournaud5. Form Meets Message: Documentary Style and Social Justice in Agnès Varda’s Feature Films – Martin Hall6. Cinematic Justice: The Stories We Could Tell – Deirdre O’NeillSection Two: Justice Through Place7. Refugees in Indian Cinema: Affective Empathy, Grievability, and the Cultural Disorientation of the Displaced Other - Sony Jalarajan Raj & Adith K Suresh8. Memory Activism Through Stateless Cinema: An Exploration of Kurdish Documentary Film – Cem Koç9. The Personal is Political: First-Person Storytelling and Third Cinema in Latin America – Carolina Machado Oliveira10. Representations of the Anthropocene in Terrence Malick's The Thin Red (1998) – João Pedro Soares11. Set In Motion: Film And the Promotion of Social Justice in Nigerian Civil Service – Emmanuel Best ThlizaSection Three: Justice Through Embodiment12. “History is A People’s Memory”: Malcolm X As told to Moviegoers and Interpreted by Social Justice Movements – Christian Chambless and Brittany Potter13. Cinema of the poor: The Popular Culture of the Egyptian Subaltern – Al-Amira Samah Saleh14. The Tragedy of Watching the Tragedy: Cinematic Injustice – Adalberto Fernandes15. Visualising Justice: Korean Films' Transformative Journey from Reel to Real – Kyoung-suk Sung16. Face/Off: Social Injustice in the Film Industry Through the Eyes of Young Professionals – Sarikakis, K., Chatziefraimidou, A., Ramadani, G., Haslauer, S., & Yeroshkina, M.