The Cinema of Me

Global in its reach, sensitive to the political valences of self-inscription, ground-breaking in its attention to new formats and technologies, The Cinema of Me offers unmistakable proof that the first person film is a vital strand of contemporary media production. Once thought to be the refuge of the privileged, self-absorbed Western man, autobiography exists today as a ubiquitous act of self-expression and political agency. Spanning a breadth of modalities - including the essay film, i-movie, cinematic self-portrait, home movie remix, blog - The Cinema of Me testifies to the power of media practices that can transform private lives into social subjectivities. -- Michael Renov, University of Southern California

When a filmmaker makes a film with herself as a subject, she is already divided as both the subject matter of the film and the subject making the film. The two senses of the word are immediately in play - the matter and the maker-thus the two ways of being subjectified as both subject and object. Subjectivity finds its filmic expression, not surprisingly, in very personal ways, yet it is nonetheless shaped by and in relation to collective expressions of identity that can transform the cinema of 'me' into the cinema of 'we'. Leading scholars and practitioners of first-person film are brought together in this groundbreaking collection to consider the theoretical, ideological, and aesthetic challenges wrought by this form of filmmaking in its diverse cultural, geographical, and political contexts.