Cinematic Nightscapes - (Anthropology, Creative Practice and Ethnography) by Eleonora Diamanti & Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier (Hardcover)

About the Book

Cinematic Nightscapes explores how night in contemporary Cuba becomes a powerful space for political expression, imagination and artistic experimentation. Through Cuban documentary film, it examines how the night reshapes ethnographic practices and invites new ways of seeing, listening, feeling and imagining social life.

Book Synopsis

Cinematic Nightscapes explores how the darkness of night in contemporary Cuba becomes a powerful site for political expression, cultural imagination and artistic experimentation. As the rhythms of the day give way to night, a different Cuba emerges, one where protests take shape, marginalized voices reclaim space, and filmmakers reimagine ethnographic and documentary storytelling. This book offers a sensorial and creative journey through Cuban documentary films that engage with the night not just as backdrop, but as a central character--shaping emotions, aesthetics and socio-political discourse. Blending theory with rich visual analysis, Cinematic Nightscapes asks: How does the night alter ethnographic practice? How do Cuban filmmakers use the night to imagine new futures? Through a reflexive, multimodal approach, the book invites readers to experience the complexities of nocturnal life in Cuba, where darkness illuminates new possibilities.

From the Back Cover

Cinematic nightscapes is a sensorial, creative and audio-visual exploration of the night in twenty-first century ethnographic and documentary film in Cuba.

Cuba has recently undergone a series of growing nation-wide blackouts that plunged the country into an everlasting night, a condition that has become central for political reclamation, imaginary formation and aesthetic experimentation. From the politics of fun and desire, the political reclamation of the night by protests and marginalised groups to sensory and material nocturnal experiences, the book brings the reader, the viewer and the listener through a deep dive into the obscurity of the Cuban night in all its complexities.

Two fundamental sets of questions guide the book. The first concerns ethnographic practices and aesthetic experimentations: How does night, with its own atmosphere and sensibilities, reshape and reconfigure sensorial, multimodal and creative-based ethnographic practices? The second connects audio-visual practices and representation to imaginary formation and socio-political issues: How does documentary and ethnographic film in Cuba engage with the night as a site of political reclamation and aesthetic experimentation that the day precludes?

By reflexively engaging with ethnographic practice and connecting with recent documentary films produced by Cuban directors, the book offers a creative way to engage with the aesthetics, politics and the imaginary of the night in contemporary Cuba.

About the Author

Eleonora Diamanti is Lecturer in Communications and Media Studies at John Cabot University
Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Victoria