This edited volume investigates the reconfiguration of gender in French banlieue cinema, interrogating whether the films produced over the last two decades provide new and viable models of resistance to dominant modes of power. Contributors take a critical approach which identifies gender as a marker of both body and identity politics to highlight the need to overcome a binary approach to banlieue aesthetics, which limits inquiry into the basis of conflict. Given that a feminization—and, to some extent, queering—of the once exclusively-masculine space is underway, contributors ultimately conclude that the banlieue and its on-screen representations cannot be properly understood unless intersectionality as a systematic approach is applied as an interpretive lens. Scholars of film, gender studies, and sociology will find this book particularly useful.

Reframing difference is the first major study of two overlapping strands of contemporary French cinema, cinema beur (films by young directors of Maghrebi immigrant origin) and cinema de banlieue (films set in France's disadvantaged outer-city estates). Carrie Tarr's insightful account draws on a wide range of films, from directors such as Mehdi Charef, Mathieu Kassovitz and Djamel Bensalah. Her analyses compare the work of male and female, majority and minority film-makers, and emphasise the significance of authorship in the representation of gender and ethnicity. Foregrounding such issues as the quest for identity, the negotiation of space and the recourse to memory and history, she argues that these films challenge and reframe the symbolic spaces of French culture, addressing issues of ethnicity and difference which are central to today's debates about what it means to be French. This timely book is essential reading for anyone interested in the relationship between cinema and citizenship in a multicultural society.

Through the prisms of ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, French Minority Cinema explores key questions of identity and social interaction in the context of republican France, across two significant 'minority' cinemas: cinéma de banlieue and gay cinema. It offers the first comprehensive parallel study of these two bodies of film and their inter-relations, examining issues of national cinema and identity and the problematic status of minorities within the contemporary Republic. Against a backdrop of political and media debates on the PACS, parity, the affaire du voile and the French principle of laïcité, banlieue youth dissatisfaction, and gay parenting, French Minority Cinema charts the negotiatory discourse that has emerged through, and around, a core corpus of films released over the past two decades. This study will be of interest to scholars and students alike, working in the fields of French, Film, and Gay and Lesbian/Queer Studies.

Representation of the Banlieusard in Literature, Cinema, and Performances: Francephobia explores the complex identity of the banlieusard within French society through literature, film and pop culture, such as rap music and stand-up comedy. The banlieue, known in English as the “inner city,” is home to underrepresented and marginalized descendants of North- and West- African immigrants as well as some white European immigrants or white French individuals. Established in tall housing estates located on the wider outskirts of Paris, the banlieue is a space constructed through the systemic disenfranchisement of working-class people across genders, ethnicities, and race and through associations with crime, unemployment, poverty, etc. In face of these challenges, the banlieusard(e) attempts to claim their Frenchness but finds oneself trapped by society’s negative perception. Similarly, they are also physically trapped in their space of high-rise buildings and in a social/economic sphere with preconceived beliefs making it difficult to integrate and contribute to French society. This book aims to emphasize resistance and the agency of the banlieusard(e) rather than pointing out their marginalization by society’s preconceptions. Therefore, the spatial arrangement of the projects where they live redefines, deconstructs, reconstructs and reverses the center/periphery dichotomy, in which the center becomes the banlieue and as a result, its outcast status is diminished. Through a varied selection of novels, films, rap and stand-up comedy, Emma Chebinou exposes the necessity in examining negative stigmas created by the institutional discourse and by space and gives a broader interpretation of the banlieue.

This thoroughly revised and expanded edition of a key textbook offers an innovative and accessible account of the richness and diversity of French film history and culture from the 1890s to the present day. The contributors, who include leading historians and film scholars, provide an indispensable introduction to key topics and debates in French film history. Each chronological section addresses seven key themes – people, business, technology, forms, representations, spectators and debates, providing an essential overview of the cinema industry, the people who worked in it, including technicians and actors as well as directors, and the culture of cinema going in France from the beginnings of cinema to the contemporary period.

Bringing together a diverse corpus of over 60 documentaries, short films, téléfilms, and feature films released in France between 1979 and 2014, this book represents the first comprehensive study of cinematic representations of first-generation Muslim women from the Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia) in France.

In the impoverished outskirts of French cities, known as the banlieues, minority communities are turning to American culture, history, and theory to make their own voices, cultures, and histories visible. Filmmakers have followed suit, turning to Hollywood genre conventions to challenge notions of identity, belonging, and marginalization in mainstream French film. French B Movies proposes that French banlieue films, far from being a fringe genre, offer a privileged site from which to understand the current state of the French film industry in an age of globalization. This gritty style appears in popular arthouse films such as Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine and Bande de filles (Girlhood) along with the major Netflix hit series Lupin. David Pettersen traces how, in these works and others, directors fuse features of banlieue cinema with genre formulas associated with both Hollywood and Black cultural models, as well as how transnational genre hybridizations, such as B movies, have become part of the ecosystem of the French film industry. By combining film analysis, cultural history, critical theory, and industry studies, French B Movies reveals how featuring banlieues is as much about trying to imagine new identities and production models for French cinema as it is about representation.

This provocative collection elaborates a trans-cultural definition of being a woman in struggle. Looking at the films of women directors in countries in the Mediterranean rim, this book spurs a contemporary discussion of women s human, civil, and social rights while situating feminist arguments on women s identity, roles, psychology and sexuality. Although their methodologies are diverse, these artists are united in their use of cinema as a means of intervention, taking on the role as outspoken and leading advocates for women s problems. Contributors examine the ways in which cinematic art reproduces and structures the discourses of realism and represents Mediterranean women s collective experience of struggle.

Teaching Diversity and Inclusion: Examples from a French-Speaking Classroom explores new and pioneering strategies for transforming current teaching practices into equitable, inclusive and immersive classrooms for all students. This cutting-edge volume dares to ask new questions, and shares innovative, concrete tools useful to a wide variety of classrooms and institutional contexts, far beyond any disciplinary borders. This book aims to instill classroom approaches which allow every student to feel safe to share their truth and to reflect deeply about their own identity and challenges, discussing course design, assignments, technologies, activities, and strategies that target diversity and inclusion in the French classroom. Each chapter shares why and how to design an inclusive community of learners, including opportunities to promote interdisciplinary approaches and cross-disciplinary collaborations, exploring cultures and underrepresented perspectives, and distinguishing unconscious biases. The essays also provide theoretical and practical strategies adaptable to any reflective teacher desiring to create a welcoming, inclusive classroom that draws in students they might not otherwise attract. This long overdue work will be ideal for both undergraduate and graduate students and administrators seeking fresh approaches to diversity in the classroom.

Taking a text-led approach, with the emphasis on more recent popular films, Studying French Cinema is directed at non-specialists such as students of French, Film Studies, and the general reader with an interest in post-war French cinema. Each of the chapters focuses on one or more key films from the ground-breaking films of the nouvelle vague (Les 400 coups, 1959) to contemporary documentary (Etre et avoir, 2002) and puts them into their relevant contexts. Depending on the individual film, these include explorations of childhood, adolescence and coming of age (Les 400 coups, L'Argent de poche); auteur ideology and individual style (the films of Jean-Luc Godard and Agnes Varda); the representation of recent French history (Lacombe Lucien and Au revoir les enfants); transnational production practices (Le Pacte des loups); and popular cinema, comedy and gender issues (e.g. Le Diner de cons). Each film is embedded in its cultural and political context. Together, the historical discussions provide an overview of post-war French history to the present. Useful suggestions are made as to studies of related films, both those discussed within the book and outside.