Film Landscapes of Global Youth Imagining Young Lives Routledge Spaces of Childhood and Youth Series

This book explores the dynamic landscapes of global youth through spatially grounded chapters focused on film and media. It is a collection of incredible works concerning children and young people in, out, and through media as well as an examination of what is possible for the future of research within the intersections of geography, film theory, and children?s studies.

It contains contributions from leading academics from anthropology, sociology, philosophy, art, film and media studies, women and gender studies, Indigenous studies, education, and geography, with chapters focused on a spatial area and the representations and relationships of children in that area through film and media. The insights presented also provide a unique and eclectic perspective on the current state of children?s research in relation to the ever-changing media landscape of the 21st century. Film Landscapes of Global Youth approaches the subjects of children and young people in film and media in a way that is not bound by genre, format, medium, or the on-/off-screen binary. Each chapter offers an insightful look at the relationships and portrayals of children and young people in relation to a specific country, culture, or geographic feature.

This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the intersections between geography, young lives, and the power of film, television, social media, content creation, and more.

Chapter 1

Introducing the Film Landscapes of Global Youth

Stuart C. Aitken & Jacob Rowlett

Chapter 2

Anita: Journeying through landscapes of loss and hope in Buenos Aires

Fernando Bosco

Chapter 3

Two Girls, Two Islands, Two Images. New Cinema in the Faroe Islands

Firouz Gaini

Chapter 4

Becoming a filmmaker, an adult, and Italian? Shooting the new Italian youth and their rites/rights of passage

Laura Lo Presti

Chapter 5

Leaves on a Pillow: The representation of street children in the Indonesian film Daun di Atas Bantal

Harriot Beazley & Wiryo Warisno (Heru)

Chapter 6

Portraying Genocide through the Eyes of Children: The Troubled Geographies of Authenticity in Loung Ung’s First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers

James A. Tyner

Chapter 7

Cinematic Counter-Cartographies of Black and Brown Girlhood in the French Banlieue

Pascale Joassart-Marcelli

Chapter 8

Towards a Deterritorialized Nomadism: The Transversal Role of Children in Abbas Kiarostami’s Where Is the Friend’s House? (1987) and Life and Nothing More… (1992).

Colin Gardner and James Craine

Chapter 9

Indigenous Children in Canadian Cinema: Ethnographic Explorations and National Narratives in the Early Films of Harlan Ingersoll Smith and Alanis Obomsawin

Ann Marie Murnaghan & Tyler McCreary

Chapter 10

Hope Through Creation: Celtic Kids and Tomm Moore’s The Secret of Kells

Stuart C. Aitken

Chapter 11

The (common) worlds of dragons: nature, humans, and the Anthropocene in children's films

Susana Cortés-Morales

Chapter 12

“A Futuristic Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer?”: Race, Class, and Boyhood in Star Trek’s 24th Century

David K. Seitz

Chapter 13

“Why Are You Here, Rey from Nowhere?”: The Hero’s Journey, Island Storytelling, and the Gendered Roles of Heroes in the Star Wars Saga

Jacob Rowlett

Chapter 14

Finland extended: encounters with Top Gun films and the emerging post-social landscapes of youth

Raine Aiava & Noora Pyyry

Chapter 15

Cinema out of Sight: the role of film halls for street youth in Harare, Zimbabwe

Lorraine van Blerk, Wayne Shand & Janine Hunter

Chapter 16

‘What do you see guys? Comment down below’ children becoming Youtubers in the park: experimentation with digital content creation.

Polly Jarman & Peter Kraftl

Chapter 17

History, Memory, Media: Revisiting the Films from my Research on Children’s Work and Play

in Sudan

Cindi Katz

Chapter 18

Musings and Reflections: Children, Young People, Film

Tracey Skelton

Bibliography

Stuart C. Aitken has worked in the fields of film and children’s geographies for over three decades. In 1994 he published two books – Putting Children in Their Place (Association of American Geographers, Washington DC) and Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film (edited with Leo Zonn, Rowman & Littlefield) – that are considered foundational. He has since published 16 books and over 200 articles that relate to film, media, children’s geographies, child rights, and youth activism.

Jacob Rowlett is a PhD candidate whose dissertation focuses on film and media geographies. He is particularly interested in the impact of film in relation to human environments. His research spans across the fields of critical geography, tourism studies, and film theory and history.