Silencing Cinema Film Censorship around the World

The first of its kind, Silencing Cinemabrings together the key issues and authors in the field of film censorship research. Approaching censorship as a necessary mediating factor in discourses that govern the film industry and film culture allows for a discussion of cases of censorship that escape some of the more narrowly moralistic (or overly progressive) studies. Including essays by some of the best-known film historians working today, the book offers a state of the art of (historical) research on film censorship in major film production countries, including the US, the UK, Russia/Soviet Union, Germany, India, China, Nigeria, and Latin America dealing with questions of the legal system(s), policies, and institutional practices in these countries. The authors concentrate on wider questions of concrete practices, themes, discourses, and cases of film censorship in such countries as Italy, Brazil, Turkey, and Northern Europe. They also explore such innovative themes and topics as international policy and colonialism; controversial/censored movies as sites of struggle for film censorship boards and other social institutions; film censorship and authorship; genre; language; religion; film censorship and audiences; the political economy of film censorship; social values; censoring movies on DVD and the Internet. This exciting collection is thoroughly unique in its broad geographical scope and its completely comprehensive look at film censorship.

Daniel Biltereyst is a Professor in Film and Cultural Media Studies at the Department of Communication Studies, Ghent University, Belgium. Besides his many articles in journals and books, he is the editor of Explorations in New Cinema History: Approaches and Case Studies (2011) and Cinema, Audiences and Modernity: New Perspectives on European Cinema History (2012), both with Richard Maltby and Philippe Meers.Roel Vande Winkel is an Associate Professor at the University of Antwerp and at LUCA, College Sint-Lukas Brussels, Belgium. He is the Associate Editor of the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. He has published articles in many journals and books and is the editor of the award-winning volume Cinema and the Swastika (with David Welch, 2007/2011) and Perspectives on European Film and History (with Leen Engelen, 2007).