Towards a Global Folk Cinema

气候危机和公共卫生危机同时发生，凸显了世界各地社区的经历在多大程度上有着千丝万缕的联系，因此越来越迫切需要找到办法，阐明全球跨文化和社区的团结、共同关切和共同经验的各个方面。为了响应这一要求，该项目将在电影研究和更广泛的人文学科范围内开展有史以来第一次全球民间电影研究，这是一个新的比较空间，在这个空间中，不同社区的经验可以相互联系。虽然不同的学者已经顺便提到了民间电影的概念(Gabriel (1982), Landy(1994))，但还没有进行任何全面的研究来探索这种概念对全球电影的全面影响。然而，民间电影的例子——不仅是为人民的电影，而且是人民的电影，人民的电影——在电影史上比比皆是，从半个多世纪以来纽卡斯尔琥珀集体与工人阶级社区共同制作的电影，扎卡里乌斯·库努克将电影作为一种文化延续形式在古代因纽特人的口头传统中，或者艾丽西亚·罗尔瓦彻最近对意大利民间故事的电影复述。利用跨学科的框架（包括文化研究、民族学和政治理论的各个方面），这个项目将试图阐明民间电影以前没有联系的实例，突出实践的重要共性，以及世界上不同地区电影制作人和电影传统之间的共同经验。在此过程中，该项目将在电影研究和更广泛的人文学科中提出一个变革性的新视角，探索“自下而上的全球化”（Appadurai, 2001）的可能性，在这种全球化中，全球相互联系是通过建立跨文化团结从底层向上理论化的，而不是由新自由主义资本的侵略性跨国主义从上面强加的。民间电影开创了一个包容的跨文化空间，在这个空间中，不同的社区传统、经验和实践可以团结一致地放在一起，这将是对当代右翼民粹主义的重要反击，在右翼民粹主义中，社区传统往往以排外主义和排外主义的保护主义方式进行排练。该项目将产生第一个学术专著，探索民间电影的全球现象。除了传统的学术成果之外，该项目还将通过研究作为实践的方面探索民间电影的新兴问题，通过电影展览实践（通过两个版本的公共电影节）探索电影和社区经验之间的界面，以及通过完成一部长篇纪录片将社区口头传统转化为苏格兰本地化背景下的电影的复杂过程。筹备研究和制作的关键环节已经开始，该奖学金将提供机会撰写专著并完成电影的后期制作，使其达到所需的专业标准，从而通过一线电影节和广播电视产生最广泛的公众影响。该奖学金还将考虑早期职业发展和参与的关键方面。我将受益于爱德华·霍利斯教授（UoE CAHSS研究副院长）和前AHRC标准资助获得者威尔·希格比教授（埃克塞特大学）的世界领先的指导，并有机会参加爱丁堡大学学术发展研究所开设的两门研究领导力课程。该奖学金还将为我的研究创造重要的机会，通过两个专题讨论会、一个电影节和一个面向公众的网站，与广泛的学者、电影制作人和感兴趣的公众接触。

As parallel climate and public health crises highlight the extent to which the experiences of communities worldwide are inextricably connected, there is an increasing urgency to find ways of illuminating aspects of solidarity, common concern and shared experience globally across cultures and communities. Responding to this imperative, this project will mount the first ever global study of a folk cinema both within film studies and the wider humanities, a new comparative space in which the experiences of diverse communities can be interconnected. Whilst disparate scholars have mentioned in passing the notion of a folk cinema (Gabriel (1982), Landy (1994)), there has yet to be undertaken any overarching study exploring the full implications such a notion holds globally for world cinema. And yet: examples of a folk cinema - a cinema not only FOR the people, but OF the people, BY the people - lie scattered throughout cinema history, from the films made collectively with working class communities over half a century by Newcastle's Amber Collective, the use of cinema as a form of cultural continuity within ancient Inuit oral traditions by Zacharius Kunuk, or Alicia Rohrwacher's recent cinematic retellings of Italian folk tales. Drawing upon an interdisciplinary framework (including aspects of culture studies, ethnology and political theory) this project will seek to illuminate previously unconnected instances of a folk cinema, highlighting important commonalities of practice and aspects of shared experience between filmmakers and traditions of cinema in very different parts of the world. In doing so, the project will propose a transformative new perspective within film studies and the wider humanities, exploring the possibility of a 'globalization from below' (Appadurai, 2001) in which global interconnectedness is theorised from the ground upwards through the establishment of cross-cultural solidarities, rather than imposed from above by the aggressive transnationalism of neoliberal capital. In inaugurating an inclusive, cross-cultural space in which diverse community traditions, experiences and practices can be placed alongside each other in solidarity, a folk cinema will present an important counter to contemporary right-wing populisms in which community tradition tends to be rehearsed in the exclusive and protectionist terms of nativism and xenophobia.The project will produce the first scholarly monograph to explore the global phenomenon of a folk cinema. Beyond traditional scholarly outputs, the project will also seek to explore the emergent questions of a folk cinema through aspects of research-as-practice, exploring the interface between cinema and community experience both through film exhibition practice (through two editions of a public film festival), and the complex process through which community oral traditions are translated into cinema within a localised Scottish context, through the completion of a feature-length documentary film. Key aspects of preparatory research and production have already been undertaken, and the fellowship will afford the opportunity to write up the monograph and complete post-production on the film to the professional standard required for it to achieve the widest public impact through frontline film festivals and broadcast television. The fellowship will also allow for crucial aspects of early career development and engagement. I will benefit from world-leading mentorship from Professor Edward Hollis (CAHSS Associate Dean of Research at UoE) and previous AHRC standard grant recipient Professor Will Higbee (University of Exeter), and from the chance to attend two research leadership courses run by Edinburgh University's Institute of Academic Development. The fellowship will also create significant opportunities for my research to engage with a broad community of scholars, filmmakers and interested publics through two symposia, a film festival, and a public-facing website.