With the advent of digital filmmaking and critical recognition of the relevance of self expression, first-person narratives, and personal practices of memorialization, interest in the amateur moving image has never been stronger. Bringing together key scholars in the field, and revealing the rich variety of amateur filmmaking-from home movies of Imperial India and film diaries of life in contemporary China, to the work of leading auteurs such as Joseph Morder and Péter Forgács-Amateur Filmmaking highlights the importance of amateur cinema as a core object of critical interest across an array of disciplines. With contributions on the role of the archive, on YouTube, and on the impact of new technologies on amateur filmmaking, these essays offer the first comprehensive examination of this growing field.

ContributorsLaura Rascaroli, Gwenda Young, Barry Monahan: Introduction. Amateur Filmmaking: New Developments and DirectionsSECTION ONE: REFRAMING THE HOME MOVIE1. Roger Odin: The Home Movie and Space of Communication2. Liz Czach: Home Movies and Amateur Film as National Cinema3. Maija Howe: The Photographic Hangover: Reconsidering the Aesthetics of the Postwar 8mm Home Movie4. Mark Neumann: Amateur Film, Automobility and the Cinematic Aesthetics of LeisureSECTION TWO: PRIVATE REELS, HISTORIOGRAPHICAL CONCERNS5. Heather Norris Nicholson: Cinemas of Catastrophe and Continuity: Mapping Out Twentieth-Century Amateur Practices of Intentional History-Making in Northern England 6. Gwenda Young: Glimpses of a Hidden History: Exploring Irish Amateur Collections, 1930-1970 7. Annamaria Motrescu-Mayes: Uncensored British Imperial Politics in Late Colonial Home Movies: Memsahibs, Indian Bearers and Chinese Communist Insurgents8. Karen Lury: The Amateur Film: From Artifact to Anecdote9. Janna Jones: Starring Sally Peshlakai: Rewriting the Script for Tad Nichols's 1939 Navajo Rug WeavingSECTION THREE: NONFICTIONAL RECONTEXTUALISATIONS10. Efrén Cuevas: Change of Scale: Home Movies as Microhistory in Documentary Films 11. Barry Monahan: Creating Historiography: Alan Gilsenan's Formal Reframing of Amateur Archival Footage in Home Movie Nights12. Stefano Odorico: "That Would Be Wrong": Errol Morris and His Use of Home Movies (As Metalanguages) in Feature DocumentariesSECTION FOUR: AMATEUR AUTEUR13. Richard Kilborn: "I am a Time Archaeologist": Some Reflections on the Filmmaking Practice of Péter Forgács14. Ruth Balint: Representing the Past and the Meaning of Home in Péter Forgács's Private Hungary15. Dominique Bluher: Necessity Is the Mother of Invention, or Morder's Amateur Toolkit16. Dominique Bluher: Joseph Morder, the "Filmateur": An Interview with Joseph Morder17. Laura Rascaroli: Working at Home: Tarnation, Amateur Authorship, and Self-inscription in the Digital AgeSECTION FIVE: NEW DIRECTIONS: THE DIGITAL AGE 18. Susan Aasman: Saving Private Reels: Archival Practices and Digital Memories (Formerly Known as Home Movies) in the Digital Age19. Patricia R. Zimmerman: The Home Movie Archive Live20. Tianqi Yu: An Inward Gaze at Home: Amateur First Person DV Documentary Filmmaking in Twenty-First Century China21. Lauren S. Berliner: Shooting for Profit: The Monetary Logic of the YouTube Home Movie22. Abigail Keating: Home Movies in the Age of Web 2.0: The Case of "Star Wars Kid"23. Max Schleser: Towards Mobile Filmmaking 2.0: Amateur Filmmaking as an Alternative Cultural PracticeBibliographyFurther ResourcesIndex