Rethinking Third Cinema

This important anthology addresses established notions about Third Cinema theory, and the cinema practice of developing and postcolonial nations. The 'Third Cinema' movement called for a unified, politically progressive film-making practice relevant to the social conditions of Africa, Asia and Latin America, a cinema that would take on board issues of race, class, religion and notions of national integrity. The films which resulted from the movement, from such celebrated directors such as Ousmane Sembene, Satyajit Ray and Nelson Pereira dos Santos, are among the most culturally signficant, politically sophisticated and frequently studied films of the 1960s and 1970s. However, despite the contemporary popularity and critical attention enjoyed by films from Asia and Latin America in particular, Third Cinema and Third Cinema theory appears to have lost their momentum in the light of the dissolution of the Three-World system with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Rethinking Third Cinema seeks to bring Third Cinema and Third Cinema theory back into the critical spotlight. The contributors address the most difficult and challenging questions Third Cinema poses, suggesting new methodologies and redirections of existing ones. Crucially, they also re-examine the entire phenomenon of film-making in a vanishing 'Third World', with case studies of the cinemas of India, Iran, China, Mexico and Argentina, among others.

Anthony Guneratne teaches film, media, and visual culture at Florida Atlantic University and is presently a visiting scholar in Harvard University's Department of English. He has written on the literature and films of postcoloniality and on various topics in Indian and Singaporean cinema.  His publications include Shakespeare, Film Studies, and the Visual Cultures of Modernity and Shakespeare and Genre.