French Minority Cinema

Citation

Johnston C (2010) French Minority Cinema. Contemporary Cinema, 6. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. http://www.brill.com/products/book/french-minority-cinema

Abstract
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 since the 1990s.

Keywords
French cinema; banlieue cinema; gay cinema; identity; parity; sexuality; contemporary French; Republicanism

People

Dr Cristina Johnston

Senior Lecturer, French