Mining the Home Movie Excavations in Histories and Memories [Paperback]

The first international anthology to explore the historical significance of amateur film,Mining the Home Moviemakes visible, through image and analysis, the hidden yet ubiquitous world of home moviemaking. These essays boldly combine primary research, archival collections, critical analyses, filmmakers' own stories, and new theoretical approaches regarding the meaning and value of amateur and archival films. Editors Karen L. Ishizuka and Patricia R. Zimmermann have fashioned a groundbreaking volume that identifies home movies as vital methods of visually preserving history. The essays cover an enormous range of subject matter, defining an important genre of film studies and establishing the home movie as an invaluable tool for extracting historical and social insights.

Karen L. Ishizukais an independent writer, curator, and documentary producer and is the author ofLost and Found: Reclaiming the Japanese American Incarceration(2006).Patricia R. Zimmermanis Professor of Cinema and Photography at Ithaca College. She is the author ofReel Families: A Social History of Amateur Film(1995) andStates of Emergency: Documentaries, Wars, Democracies(2000).

By claiming home movies as essential tools of historiography, Ishizuka and Zimmerman manage to break down artificial barriers between public histories and private records. In this groundbreaking volume, their selection of visionary essays offers a way to reclaim devalued work and turn the tables on the cataloguers. Absolutely required reading for historians, curators and media analysts. B. Ruby Rich, author of?Chick Flicks: Theories and Memories of the Feminist Film Movement

List of Illustrations
Foreword
Acknowledgments

Introduction. The Home Movie Movement: Excavations, Artifacts, MiningsPatricia R. Zimmermann
1. Remaking Home MoviesRichard Fung
2. The Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Inl.