Alisa Lebow | University of Sussex (original) (raw)
Books by Alisa Lebow
Stanford Digital, 2018
Filming Revolution is an interactive data-base documentary project about independent and document... more Filming Revolution is an interactive data-base documentary project about independent and documentary filmmaking in Egypt since the revolution. Bringing together the collective wisdom and creative strategies of media-makers in Egypt, before during and after the revolution, the website consists of 30 interviews with Egyptian filmmakers, artists, activists and archivists, discussing their work and their ideas about how (and whether) to make films in the time of revolution.
A Companion to Contemporary Documentary Film presents a collection of original essays that explor... more A Companion to Contemporary Documentary Film presents a collection of original essays that explore major issues surrounding the state of current documentary films and their capacity to inspire and effect change.
Presents a comprehensive collection of essays relating to all aspects of contemporary documentary films
Includes nearly 30 original essays by top documentary film scholars and makers, with each thematic grouping of essays sub-edited by major figures in the field
Explores a variety of themes central to contemporary documentary filmmakers and the study of documentary film – the planet, migration, work, sex, virus, religion, war, torture, and surveillance
Considers a wide diversity of documentary films that fall outside typical canons, including international and avant-garde documentaries presented in a variety of media
When a filmmaker makes a film with herself as a subject, she is already divided as both the subje... more 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.
Documentaries have increasingly used the first person, with a number of prominent filmmakers find... more Documentaries have increasingly used the first person, with a number of prominent filmmakers finding critical and commercial success with this intimate approach. Jewish filmmakers have particularly thrived in this genre, using it to explore disparate definitions of the self in relation to the larger groups of family and community.
In First Person Jewish, Alisa S. Lebow examines more than a dozen films from Jewish artists to reveal how the postmodern impulse to turn the lens inward intersects provocatively (and at times unwittingly) with historical tropes and stereotypes of the Jew. Focusing her efforts on Jewish filmmakers working on the margins, Lebow analyzes the work of Jonathan Caouette, Chantal Akerman, and Alan Berliner, among others, also including a discussion of her own first person film Treyf (1998), made with Cynthia Madansky. The filmmakers in this study, Lebow argues, are confronting a desire to both define and reimagine contemporary Jewishness.
Using a multidisciplinary approach to first person films, Lebow shows how this form of self-expression is challenging both autobiography and documentary and, in the process, changing the art of cinema and recording the cultural shifts of our time
articles by Alisa Lebow
World Records, Vol 2, 2018
Read and contribute your thoughts to this online community-based manifesto challenging the hegemo... more Read and contribute your thoughts to this online community-based manifesto challenging the hegemony of story in contemporary documentary.
https://vols.worldrecordsjournal.org/02/03
Published in the Film Quarterly Dossier on Chantal Akerman (Vol 70, no. 1, Fall 2016): 54-60
Studies in Documentary Film
(2019a) explores contemporary first person documentary practice in mainland China. Analysing how ... more (2019a) explores contemporary first person documentary practice in mainland China. Analysing how filmmakers make socially and culturally rooted ethical and aesthetic choices, it argues that the Confucian concept of the relational self still largely underpins how individuals understand the self. Yu continues to explore the aesthetics of first person expression in recent 'image writing' practice, investigating what the essayistic means through the Chinese literary tradition (2019b). Lebow's recent work on the outpouring of first person films from postrevolution Egypt, (2018, 2020), is another example of this impulse to expand the field of inquiry well beyond limited Western paradigms. This special issue represents the continuation of this desire to explore articulations of the first person in film specifically by women filmmakers, working in the geographical regions of East Asia, primarily mainland China, Taiwan and Japan. Taking this as its site of focus, this volume explores the multiple social practices and productive forces that inhere in the filmic production of the individuatedfemalesubject in nonwestern, specifically East Asian, cultures.
Visual Anthropology, 2016
Theory & Event 17.1, Mar 2014
One of Turkey's best known singers, Bülent Ersoy's M2F transition coincided with the 1980 militar... more One of Turkey's best known singers, Bülent Ersoy's M2F transition coincided with the 1980 military coup. The regime banned her public performances and refused to recognize her gender status, thrusting her into a legal quagmire. The End of Fame (1981), a nearly lost queer gem of Turkish cinema, traverses the star's personal transition while also (pre-)narrating her troubles with the law. Combining a reading of this film with her real life trials, this essay explores the fascinating encounters that Ersoy's life hosted between the law of spectacle and the spectacle of law, between the aesthetic and juridical laws of gender.
Arab Studies Journal , 2008
Journal of Media Practice, 2008
When I came to England to teach 5 years ago, I encountered a very unexpected phenomenon called Ph... more When I came to England to teach 5 years ago, I encountered a very unexpected phenomenon called PhD by Practice. I had barely heard of it before and yet in my new job I was asked to be a second supervisor on two such projects in the space of about one month. When I asked for clarification as to what precisely this practical PhD entailed, no one could really tell me. The more I probed, the less information I seemed to get. It wouldn't have been the first time that my typically direct New Yorker approach instigated another typical cultural reaction: English reticence and self--effacement. It seemed to me at the time that my interlocutors would rather appear incompetent (though they clearly were no such thing) than present themselves as masterful or proficient in this area. Although there was something I had to admire in the modesty of the gesture, it didn't really help me come to grips with what it was I was being asked to do.
book chapters by Alisa Lebow
Intervening in the dichotomous documentary categories of anti-war and war films, this book chapt... more Intervening in the dichotomous documentary categories of anti-war and war films, this book chapter creates a new taxonomy by adding the important new contributions to documentary film history of the para-military documentary and the 'unwar' documentary. Popular examples of what is identified here as the 'paramilitary' documentary would be Restrepo (Sebastian Junger and Tim Heatherington, 2010) and Armadillo (Janus Metz Pedersen, 2010). The 'unwar' documentary, instead, resists all generic indicators either of the pro-, para-, or anti- variety, and operates at the intersection of the uncanny, the untimely, and the optical-unconscious, as it undoes the logic that would subtend militarism full-stop. Filmic examples are drawn from the work of Harun Farocki, Walid Raad, Alexander Sokurov, and Philip Scheffner.
Analyzing three contemporary documentaries (Andrés Di Tella's Fotografias, Sandhya Suri's I for I... more Analyzing three contemporary documentaries (Andrés Di Tella's Fotografias, Sandhya Suri's I for India, and Tania Cypriano's Grandma has a Video Camera) this chapter explores the relationship between the camera and migration, arguing that it serves not only as a recording device per se, but as a mobility mechanism, setting certain migratory journeys in motion.
Killer Images: Documentary Film, Memory and the Performance of Violence, eds. Joram Ten Brink and Joshua Oppenheimer , 2012
F is for Phony, eds Alexandra Juhasz and Jesse Lerner, 2006
Cinsellik Muamması (haz. Cüneyt Çakırlar, Serkan Delice), 2012
Benim bafl›ma bütün bu gelenlerin nedeni, flöhretimin fazla ileri oluflu. fiöhretimin bedelidir b... more Benim bafl›ma bütün bu gelenlerin nedeni, flöhretimin fazla ileri oluflu. fiöhretimin bedelidir bu." 2 Bülent Ersoy, 1984 TÜRK‹YE'DE queer kuram›n›n imkânlar›n› ve açmazlar›n› irdeleyen bu derlemede baflrole Bülent Ersoy'u koyan bir makalenin "olmazsa olmaz" bir yan› var; gerçi ço¤u okurda da "aman eksik olsun" duygusunu uyand›raca¤›n› kestirebiliyoruz. Ersoy, malum, Türkiye LGBTT tarihinin en göz önünde simalar›ndan. Fakat kendisi için yürüttü¤ü mücadeleyi ve açt›¤› alan› genellefltirmeyi reddetmesi, 1980'li y›llardan bugüne ülkede vücut bulmakta olan LGBTT hareketiyle herhangi bir dayan›flma sergilemek flöyle dursun, edindi¤i kültürel sermayeyi homofobik ve transfobik beyanlar›yla pekifltirmeye çal›flmas›, özellikle kamusal alanda LGBTT mücadelesi verenler için Ersoy'u, benimsenmesi zor bir figür k›l›yor. Murat Belge'nin 80'lerde tespit etti¤i gibi, Ersoy'un kurtulufl stratejisi, "kendisini d›fllam›fl ve yasaklam›fl olan egemen ideoloji ve ahlak de¤erleriyle uzlaflmaya ve yuvaya geri dönmeye çal›flmak"t›. 3 fiubat 2008'de, Popstar Alaturka program›nda, "O¤lum olsa askere göndermezdim," demesini takip eden tart›flmalarda ve 1. Arkadafl›m›z Marcos Becquer'in an›s›na adad›¤›m›z bu yaz›ya katk›lar› için Meltem Ah›ska, Zeynep Dadak, Veysel Eflsiz ve Merve Kayan'a teflekkür ederiz. Editörlerimiz Cüneyt Çak›rlar ve Serkan Delice yazma sürecinde destek ve hoflgörülerini esirgemediler. 2. "Bülent Ersoy'dan kad›nca notlar", Milliyet, 4 A¤ustos 1984. 3. Murat Belge, "Bülent Ersoy ve Biz", Yeni Gündem, y›l 4, say› 81, 20-26 Eylül 1987, s. 23.
Talks by Alisa Lebow
Lecture given on 23 May 2019 at the German Film Institute and Museum in Frankfurt as part of “The... more Lecture given on 23 May 2019 at the German Film Institute and Museum in Frankfurt as part of “The Inventor of the Form: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman” retrospective.
A post-film discussion with two of the producers after the 30 June 2017 DocHouse screening of Lau... more A post-film discussion with two of the producers after the 30 June 2017 DocHouse screening of Laura Poitras' film Risk, about Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
Stanford Digital, 2018
Filming Revolution is an interactive data-base documentary project about independent and document... more Filming Revolution is an interactive data-base documentary project about independent and documentary filmmaking in Egypt since the revolution. Bringing together the collective wisdom and creative strategies of media-makers in Egypt, before during and after the revolution, the website consists of 30 interviews with Egyptian filmmakers, artists, activists and archivists, discussing their work and their ideas about how (and whether) to make films in the time of revolution.
A Companion to Contemporary Documentary Film presents a collection of original essays that explor... more A Companion to Contemporary Documentary Film presents a collection of original essays that explore major issues surrounding the state of current documentary films and their capacity to inspire and effect change.
Presents a comprehensive collection of essays relating to all aspects of contemporary documentary films
Includes nearly 30 original essays by top documentary film scholars and makers, with each thematic grouping of essays sub-edited by major figures in the field
Explores a variety of themes central to contemporary documentary filmmakers and the study of documentary film – the planet, migration, work, sex, virus, religion, war, torture, and surveillance
Considers a wide diversity of documentary films that fall outside typical canons, including international and avant-garde documentaries presented in a variety of media
When a filmmaker makes a film with herself as a subject, she is already divided as both the subje... more 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.
Documentaries have increasingly used the first person, with a number of prominent filmmakers find... more Documentaries have increasingly used the first person, with a number of prominent filmmakers finding critical and commercial success with this intimate approach. Jewish filmmakers have particularly thrived in this genre, using it to explore disparate definitions of the self in relation to the larger groups of family and community.
In First Person Jewish, Alisa S. Lebow examines more than a dozen films from Jewish artists to reveal how the postmodern impulse to turn the lens inward intersects provocatively (and at times unwittingly) with historical tropes and stereotypes of the Jew. Focusing her efforts on Jewish filmmakers working on the margins, Lebow analyzes the work of Jonathan Caouette, Chantal Akerman, and Alan Berliner, among others, also including a discussion of her own first person film Treyf (1998), made with Cynthia Madansky. The filmmakers in this study, Lebow argues, are confronting a desire to both define and reimagine contemporary Jewishness.
Using a multidisciplinary approach to first person films, Lebow shows how this form of self-expression is challenging both autobiography and documentary and, in the process, changing the art of cinema and recording the cultural shifts of our time
World Records, Vol 2, 2018
Read and contribute your thoughts to this online community-based manifesto challenging the hegemo... more Read and contribute your thoughts to this online community-based manifesto challenging the hegemony of story in contemporary documentary.
https://vols.worldrecordsjournal.org/02/03
Published in the Film Quarterly Dossier on Chantal Akerman (Vol 70, no. 1, Fall 2016): 54-60
Studies in Documentary Film
(2019a) explores contemporary first person documentary practice in mainland China. Analysing how ... more (2019a) explores contemporary first person documentary practice in mainland China. Analysing how filmmakers make socially and culturally rooted ethical and aesthetic choices, it argues that the Confucian concept of the relational self still largely underpins how individuals understand the self. Yu continues to explore the aesthetics of first person expression in recent 'image writing' practice, investigating what the essayistic means through the Chinese literary tradition (2019b). Lebow's recent work on the outpouring of first person films from postrevolution Egypt, (2018, 2020), is another example of this impulse to expand the field of inquiry well beyond limited Western paradigms. This special issue represents the continuation of this desire to explore articulations of the first person in film specifically by women filmmakers, working in the geographical regions of East Asia, primarily mainland China, Taiwan and Japan. Taking this as its site of focus, this volume explores the multiple social practices and productive forces that inhere in the filmic production of the individuatedfemalesubject in nonwestern, specifically East Asian, cultures.
Visual Anthropology, 2016
Theory & Event 17.1, Mar 2014
One of Turkey's best known singers, Bülent Ersoy's M2F transition coincided with the 1980 militar... more One of Turkey's best known singers, Bülent Ersoy's M2F transition coincided with the 1980 military coup. The regime banned her public performances and refused to recognize her gender status, thrusting her into a legal quagmire. The End of Fame (1981), a nearly lost queer gem of Turkish cinema, traverses the star's personal transition while also (pre-)narrating her troubles with the law. Combining a reading of this film with her real life trials, this essay explores the fascinating encounters that Ersoy's life hosted between the law of spectacle and the spectacle of law, between the aesthetic and juridical laws of gender.
Arab Studies Journal , 2008
Journal of Media Practice, 2008
When I came to England to teach 5 years ago, I encountered a very unexpected phenomenon called Ph... more When I came to England to teach 5 years ago, I encountered a very unexpected phenomenon called PhD by Practice. I had barely heard of it before and yet in my new job I was asked to be a second supervisor on two such projects in the space of about one month. When I asked for clarification as to what precisely this practical PhD entailed, no one could really tell me. The more I probed, the less information I seemed to get. It wouldn't have been the first time that my typically direct New Yorker approach instigated another typical cultural reaction: English reticence and self--effacement. It seemed to me at the time that my interlocutors would rather appear incompetent (though they clearly were no such thing) than present themselves as masterful or proficient in this area. Although there was something I had to admire in the modesty of the gesture, it didn't really help me come to grips with what it was I was being asked to do.
Intervening in the dichotomous documentary categories of anti-war and war films, this book chapt... more Intervening in the dichotomous documentary categories of anti-war and war films, this book chapter creates a new taxonomy by adding the important new contributions to documentary film history of the para-military documentary and the 'unwar' documentary. Popular examples of what is identified here as the 'paramilitary' documentary would be Restrepo (Sebastian Junger and Tim Heatherington, 2010) and Armadillo (Janus Metz Pedersen, 2010). The 'unwar' documentary, instead, resists all generic indicators either of the pro-, para-, or anti- variety, and operates at the intersection of the uncanny, the untimely, and the optical-unconscious, as it undoes the logic that would subtend militarism full-stop. Filmic examples are drawn from the work of Harun Farocki, Walid Raad, Alexander Sokurov, and Philip Scheffner.
Analyzing three contemporary documentaries (Andrés Di Tella's Fotografias, Sandhya Suri's I for I... more Analyzing three contemporary documentaries (Andrés Di Tella's Fotografias, Sandhya Suri's I for India, and Tania Cypriano's Grandma has a Video Camera) this chapter explores the relationship between the camera and migration, arguing that it serves not only as a recording device per se, but as a mobility mechanism, setting certain migratory journeys in motion.
Killer Images: Documentary Film, Memory and the Performance of Violence, eds. Joram Ten Brink and Joshua Oppenheimer , 2012
F is for Phony, eds Alexandra Juhasz and Jesse Lerner, 2006
Cinsellik Muamması (haz. Cüneyt Çakırlar, Serkan Delice), 2012
Benim bafl›ma bütün bu gelenlerin nedeni, flöhretimin fazla ileri oluflu. fiöhretimin bedelidir b... more Benim bafl›ma bütün bu gelenlerin nedeni, flöhretimin fazla ileri oluflu. fiöhretimin bedelidir bu." 2 Bülent Ersoy, 1984 TÜRK‹YE'DE queer kuram›n›n imkânlar›n› ve açmazlar›n› irdeleyen bu derlemede baflrole Bülent Ersoy'u koyan bir makalenin "olmazsa olmaz" bir yan› var; gerçi ço¤u okurda da "aman eksik olsun" duygusunu uyand›raca¤›n› kestirebiliyoruz. Ersoy, malum, Türkiye LGBTT tarihinin en göz önünde simalar›ndan. Fakat kendisi için yürüttü¤ü mücadeleyi ve açt›¤› alan› genellefltirmeyi reddetmesi, 1980'li y›llardan bugüne ülkede vücut bulmakta olan LGBTT hareketiyle herhangi bir dayan›flma sergilemek flöyle dursun, edindi¤i kültürel sermayeyi homofobik ve transfobik beyanlar›yla pekifltirmeye çal›flmas›, özellikle kamusal alanda LGBTT mücadelesi verenler için Ersoy'u, benimsenmesi zor bir figür k›l›yor. Murat Belge'nin 80'lerde tespit etti¤i gibi, Ersoy'un kurtulufl stratejisi, "kendisini d›fllam›fl ve yasaklam›fl olan egemen ideoloji ve ahlak de¤erleriyle uzlaflmaya ve yuvaya geri dönmeye çal›flmak"t›. 3 fiubat 2008'de, Popstar Alaturka program›nda, "O¤lum olsa askere göndermezdim," demesini takip eden tart›flmalarda ve 1. Arkadafl›m›z Marcos Becquer'in an›s›na adad›¤›m›z bu yaz›ya katk›lar› için Meltem Ah›ska, Zeynep Dadak, Veysel Eflsiz ve Merve Kayan'a teflekkür ederiz. Editörlerimiz Cüneyt Çak›rlar ve Serkan Delice yazma sürecinde destek ve hoflgörülerini esirgemediler. 2. "Bülent Ersoy'dan kad›nca notlar", Milliyet, 4 A¤ustos 1984. 3. Murat Belge, "Bülent Ersoy ve Biz", Yeni Gündem, y›l 4, say› 81, 20-26 Eylül 1987, s. 23.
Lecture given on 23 May 2019 at the German Film Institute and Museum in Frankfurt as part of “The... more Lecture given on 23 May 2019 at the German Film Institute and Museum in Frankfurt as part of “The Inventor of the Form: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman” retrospective.
A post-film discussion with two of the producers after the 30 June 2017 DocHouse screening of Lau... more A post-film discussion with two of the producers after the 30 June 2017 DocHouse screening of Laura Poitras' film Risk, about Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
The relationship between cinema, trauma, and memory underlie an intense masterclass on the seven-... more The relationship between cinema, trauma, and memory underlie an intense masterclass on the seven-year process of directing The Act of Killing. Filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer discusses the filmmaking process with Alisa Lebow, as well as the methodology (developed with his co-directors Christine Cynn and an anonymous Indonesian filmmaker). He will trace the role of fiction in non-fiction, fantasy in reality, and the political fever dream.
A low-budget video verite manifesto made with transgender author and activist, Leslie Feinberg in... more A low-budget video verite manifesto made with transgender author and activist, Leslie Feinberg in 1994. Distributed by Women Make Movies in NY.