The Spaces Between Grassroots Documentary ... - Ezra Winton
The Spaces Between Grassroots Documentary ... - Ezra Winton
The Spaces Between Grassroots Documentary ... - Ezra Winton
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ABSTRACT<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Spaces</strong> <strong>Between</strong><br />
<strong>Grassroots</strong> <strong>Documentary</strong> Distribution and<br />
Exhibition as Counterpublics<br />
<strong>Ezra</strong> <strong>Winton</strong><br />
<strong>Documentary</strong> cinema has emerged as an important focus for research into popular<br />
culture, marginalized narratives, and democratic media. However, academic work on the<br />
genre has been narrowly focused on audience consumption habits, aesthetic or textual<br />
analyses of individual works, and cultural analyses of the intersection of documentary<br />
and mainstream commercial cinema sites and practices. This thesis is an attempt to bridge<br />
a research gap by interrogating extra-textual elements around the grassroots distribution<br />
and exhibition of documentary cinema in Canada. By linking the concepts of cultural<br />
hegemony, counterpublics and agonostic pluralism with community-oriented practices<br />
around documentary distribution and exhibition, this thesis urges a closer look at the<br />
spaces between box office numbers, high profile documentaries, and megaplexes. First<br />
hand interviews with filmmakers, promoters, exhibitors and distributors – from director<br />
Mark Achbar (<strong>The</strong> Corporation) to the manager of Montreal’s AMC Forum – tease out<br />
the relationship between documentary cinema and counterpublics in Canada.<br />
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