Books
Single authored books
The Three Amigos: The Transnational Films of Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Alfonso Cuarón
Now available in paperback, this is the first academic book dedicated to the filmmaking of the three-best known Mexican-born directors, Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón.
Deborah Shaw examines the career trajectories of the directors and presents a detailed analysis of their most significant films with a focus on both the texts and the production contexts in which they were made. These include studies on del Toro's Cronos/Chronos, El laberinto del fauno/Pan's Labyrinth, and Hellboy II: The Golden Army; Iñárritu's Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel; and Cuarón's Sólo con tu pareja/Love in the Time of Hysteria, Y tu mamá también, and Children of Men.
The Three Amigos will be of interest to all those who study Hispanic and Spanish cinema in particular, and world and contemporary cinema in general.
Contemporary Latin American Cinema: Ten Key Films. London and New York: Continuum Publishers.
This book focuses on a selection of internationally known Latin American films. The chapters are organized around national categories, grounding the readings not only in the context of social and political conditions, but also in those of each national film industry. It is a very useful text for students of the region's cultural output, as well as for students of film studies who wish to learn more about the innovative and often controversial films discussed.
Available on Bloomsbury.com.
Edited Books
Sense8: Transcending Television, co-edited book with Professor Rob Stone, with Bloomsbury
This collection explores the many ways in which the Netflix series Sense8 transcends television. As its characters transcend physical and psychological borders of gender and geography, so the series itself transcends those between television, new media platforms and new screen technologies, while dissolving those between its producers, stars, audiences and fans. Sense8 united, inspired and energized a global community of fans that realized its own power by means of online interaction and a successful campaign to secure a series finale. The series' playful but poignant exploration of globalization, empathy, transnationalism, queer and trans aesthetics, gender fluidity, imagined communities and communities of sentiment also inspired the interdisciplinary range of contributors to this volume.
Transnational Screens: Expanding the Borders of Transnational Cinema. Routledge, co-edited with Armida de la Garza and Ruth Doughty
This book marks the 10th anniversary of the Routledge journal Transnational Cinemas, and its renaming to Transnational Screens.
The introduction reflects on the changing ways in which film is produced, distributed and consumed with the emergence of streamed content providers. Each chapter expands on previous scholarship and interrogates key areas of transnational cinema. Taken together they revisit key concepts of transnational cinema; explore the relationship between transnational and world cinema; analyse performances of cosmopolitanism; examine exoticism and nostalgia in contemporary transnational cinema; present the ‘rooted transnationalism’ of Moroccan diasporic filmmakers; reflect on how films from around the world convey ‘foreignness’; consider cross border solidarity and collaboration behind transnational talent development; explore transnational film eco-criticism from the perspectives of governance and aesthetics; and reflect on the changing nature of transnational screen studies through the concept of second phase transnationalism.
Latin American Women Filmmakers: Production, Politics, Poetics, co-edited with Deborah Martin for the World Cinema Series at I.B.Tauris
Latin American women filmmakers have achieved unprecedented international prominence in recent years. Notably political in their approach, figures such as Lucrecia Martel, Claudia Llosa and Bertha Navarro have created innovative and often challenging films, enjoying global acclaim from critics and festival audiences alike. They undeniably mark a 'moment' for Latin American cinema.Bringing together distinguished scholars in the field - and prefaced by B. Ruby Rich - this is a much-needed account and analysis of the rise of female-led film in Latin America. Chapters detail the collaboration that characterises Latin American women's filmmaking - in many ways distinct from the largely 'Third Cinema' auteurism from the region - as well as the transnational production contexts, unique aesthetics and socio-political landscape of the key industry figures. Through close attention to the particular features of national film cultures, from women's documentary filmmaking in Chile to comedic critique in Brazil, and from US Latina screen culture to the burgeoning popularity of Peruvian film, this timely study demonstrates the remarkable possibilities for film in the region.
The Transnational Fantasies of Guillermo del Toro. Palgrave Macmillan, co-edited with Ann Davies and Dolores Tierney
Offering a multifaceted approach to the Mexican-born director Guillermo del Toro, this volume examines his wide-ranging oeuvre and traces the connections between his Spanish language and English language commercial and art film projects.
“The Transnational Fantasies of Guillermo del Toro … addresses this growing interest in del Toro as an emblematic figure of these trends by bringing together a range of essays exploring the director through his English and Spanish language works. … this book an essential introduction for those discovering the director and a comprehensive collection for all del Toro scholars and fans.” (Amber Shields, Frames Cinema Journal, Fall 2015)
Film: The Essential Study Guide. Routledge, co-edited with Ruth Doughty
Providing a key resource to new students, Film: The Essential Study Guide introduces all the skills needed to succeed on a film studies course.
This succinct, accessible guide covers key topics such as:
Using the library
Online research and resources
Viewing skills
How to watch and study foreign language films
Essay writing
Presentation skills
Referencing and plagiarism
Practical Filmmaking
Including exercises and examples, Film: The Essential Study Guide helps film students understand how study skills are applicable to their learning and gives them the tools to flourish in their degree.
Contemporary Latin American Cinema: Breaking into the Global Market. Lanham, Md: Rowman and Littlefield.
This engaging book explores some of the most significant films to emerge from Latin America since 2000, an extraordinary period of international recognition for the region's cinema. Each chapter assesses an individual film, with some contributors considering the reasons for the unprecedented commercial and critical successes of movies such as City of God, The Motorcycle Diaries, Y tu mamá también, and Nine Queens, while others examine why equally important films failed to break out on the international circuit.
Written by leading specialists, the chapters not only offer textual analysis, but also trace the films' social context and production conditions, as well as critical national and transnational issues. Their well-rounded analyses provide a rich picture of the state of contemporary filmmaking in a range of Latin American countries. Nuanced and thought-provoking, the readings in this book will provide invaluable interpretations for students and scholars of Latin American film.
