Davide Cazzaro
Self-Circulating Cinema: Kuala Lumpur’s Alternative Screen Culture
Research/interest/bio:
I am completing a thesis entitled "Self-Circulating Cinema: Kuala Lumpur’s Alternative Screen Culture". This AHRC-funded research project explores that multifaceted field of inquiry which could be provisionally termed “twenty-first century cinema” and asks what empirically investigable phenomena suggest about its current “state.” The case of Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), and more precisely its recently emerged city-based alternative screen culture, is the central object of research. Drawing on a “quasi-ethnographic” investigation into this empirically elusive and inherently multi-sited phenomenon (characterised as it is by a range of “offline” and “online” contexts-activities-interactions), the thesis establishes a dialogue between the existing theoretically-based “cinema(s) after the cinema” literature and primary empirical research as well as attempts to reveal new insights in understanding the present-day scenario.
My areas of interest include certain aspects of East and Southeast Asian cinemas (particularly alternative screen practices within and between Asian cities), cultural and media geography (particularly the relationship between urban culture and media production-circulation), media ethnography, digital moving images, cinema and screen theories, film festivals.
I studied Performing Arts and Media Studies at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (2002-04), and Screen Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London (2006-07). For a number of years now, I have been collaborating with the Mostra Internazionale del Nuovo Cinema di Pesaro (Pesaro International Film Festival) as curator (2005 Korean digital focus, 2008 Homage to Amir Muhammad) and program consultant, and I have been a member of the international federation of film critics (FIPRESCI).
Permanent e-mail address: davidefrosty@tin.it
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Representative Publications:
- Joint editor (with Giovanni Spagnoletti) and chapters contributor: Il cinema sudcoreano contemporaneo e l’opera di Jang Sun-woo [Contemporary South Korean Cinema and the Oeuvre of Jang Sun-woo]. Venezia: Marsilio Editori, 2005. http://www.marsilioeditori.it/area-universita/libro/3178702-jang-sun-woo-il-cinema-sudcoreano-contemporaneo [in Italian]
- Guest edited journal issue (and contributor): “Il moviemaking digitale [Digital Moviemaking].” Segnocinema, XXVIII, n. 154 (November-December 2008). http://www.segnocinema.it/archivio/SegnoSpeciale154.pdf [in Italian]
Chapters in books:
- “I should stop lying: a conversation with Jang Sun-woo.” New Korean Cinema – Film and Viewpoint. Eds. Kim So-young, Moon Jae-chol, Baek Moon-im, Chon Jung-hwan. Seoul: Yeonsei University Press, 2007, pp. 363-408. [in Korean]
- “The page and the (video)camera: a conversation with Amir Muhammad.” Independent Cinema from Southeast Asia in the Global Mediascape. Ed. Tilman Baumgärtel. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press (in press). [in English]
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Conference papers:
- Forthcoming paper: "From city to city, from screen to screen: toward a 'self-circulating cinema'? Kuala Lumpur alternative screen culture beyond Kuala Lumpur."
- "Nights at the Kelab: developing and cementing an alternative screen culture in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)." Presented at the joint PhD symposium of University of Westminster, London School of Economics, Goldsmiths, City University London. London, November 2009.
- “Moviemakers in/and the City: the Case of Kuala Lumpur (KL).” Presented at the 2008 Southeast Asian Cinemas Conference, Ateneo School of Humanities, Quezon City, Manila.
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Teaching experience:
- As Visiting Lecturer (part-time, fixed term):
Film Studies option course, Pre-sessional English Language Programme, Centre for English Language and Academic Writing, Goldsmiths – Summer Terms 2008, 2009, 2010.
- As Visiting Tutor (part-time, fixed term):
Cinema and Society course, Media and Communications, Goldsmiths – Spring Terms 2010 and 2011.