Images of Unrest: Documentary Film and Political Violence

by Nikolaj Lübecker, Daniele Rugo

Overview

This book studies the relation between documentary film and political violence, treating images not as representations, but as original experiences that are a part of a reality that they both present and shape.

​​​​​​​Whereas documentary film scholarship has often been preoccupied with questions of the referentiality and representation, Images of Unrest: Documentary Film and Political Violence prioritises the question of what images do. The volume argues that this approach, far from being an abnegation of our responsibility towards the real, heightens the ethical stakes of documentary filmmaking and filmviewing, reminding us that we are always in and of the real.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781399557122
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	04/30/2026
Series:	Edinburgh Studies in Film and Intermediality
Pages:	236
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Nikolaj Lübecker is Professor of French and Film Studies at The University of Oxford. His previous publications include Twenty-First-Century Symbolism: Verlaine, Baudelaire, Mallarmé (2022), James Benning’s Environments (co-edited with Daniele Rugo, 2019) and The Feel-Bad Film (2015).

Daniele Rugo is Professor of Film at Brunel, University of London and an award-winning filmmaker. He has held visiting positions at University of Oxford, LSE and Sciences Po.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Introduction: The Nonrepresentational Documentary

1. What We Observe Is Not Reality Itself: Post-Vérité and Action Documentaries

2. The Poetics of Found Footage Filmmaking

3. Landscape Forensics: Sensing Violence in Empty Places

4. Missing Pictures: Reenactment, Trauma and Creation

5. Recoding Operational Images

Conclusion: Finding Beauty Amid Disaster

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Index