The Education of the Filmmaker in Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas

To ask about the nature of practice-based film education as it has emerged around the globe and exists today, is to begin to understand how filmmakers become filmmakers of a particular kind, with specific commitments and values. Ranging well beyond well-established film schools and onto the terrain of studios, clubs, film festivals, NGOs, peripatetic workshops, and alternative film schools, The Education of the Filmmaker in Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas asks probing questions about the goals of different kinds of film training and about the nature of their contributions, not only to the world of film, but to society. Looking at filmmaking in countries such as Nigeria, Qatar, the United States, the West Indies, and others, the contributors examine aspects such as audience response, film education for children, and the impact on crime.

Mette Hjort is Chair Professor and Associate Vice President at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, where she is also Director of the Centre for Cinema Studies. She is Affiliate Professor of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Washington, USA, and Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Modern European Studies (CEMES), University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Her previous publications include Small Nation, Global Cinema (2005), Lone Scherfig's "Italian for Beginners" (2010), Film and Risk (edited, 2012), and Creativity and Academic Activism (edited with Meaghan Morris, 2012). She has also published three interview books with filmmakers and is the founding co-editor (with Peter Schepelern) of the Nordic Film Classics series. Mette Hjort is Founding Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities.