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WHAT IS CINEMA?: CNC CINEMA BOOK AWARD!

The CNC has just awarded its 4th Cinema Book Prize to What is Cinema? by Germaine Dulac, a book published by Light Cone and edited by Clément Lafite and Tami Williams.

"Germaine Dulac's work and thought have been very important in the history of cinema. This book allows us to better know and appreciate her. It is very important to bring cinema to life, which is one of the CNC's missions.
- Dominique Boutonnat, President of the National Centre for Cinema and Moving Image (CNC)

"By editing for the first time What is Cinema? Light Cone brings back to the forefront a cinema pioneer unjustly forgotten. Light Cone also brings her work back to the big screen by digitizing and restoring, with the help of the CNC, several of her short films, including The Seashell and the Clergyman (1927). - CNC Press release

The Cinema Book Prize consists of 10,000 EUR: 5,000 EUR go to the pubisher for the purpose of promoting the book and 5,000 EUR go to the editors of the book.

The Jury of the Prize is composed of the actress and writer Isabelle Carré (President), Alain Kruger (journalist and producer, Vice-President of the Jury), Iris Bry (actress), Juliette Cerf (journalist at Télérama), Carole Desbarats (artistic director of the Rencontres Nationales du Havre sur les Séries) and Vincent Monadé (President of the National Book Centre) and a representative of FNAC.

Almost 75 years after its creation, this is the first published edition of Germaine Dulac's What is Cinema?. Composed of the cineaste’s lectures (1925-1939), compiled by her partner Marie-Anne Colson-Malleville and preserved in the Light Cone archives, the book illuminates the vital role of this pioneer of the 1920s French avant-garde, as an innovator of modern cinematic thought, who was reflecting, early on, in a sustained and analytical way about what cinema is.

A highly talented theorist, Germaine Dulac discusses in What Is Cinema? many aspects of the industry of the Seventh Art, including spectators' tastes, the importance of film societies, contemporary cinematographic topics, and montage. In a chapter of the book specifically dedicated to the avant-garde, she gives her definition of "integral cinema": "Harmony of lines, surfaces, volumes, directly evolving without artifices of evocations, according to the logic of their forms which are stripped of all overly human meanings, to better reach for abstraction and leave more space for sensations and dreams: such is the integral cinema to which certain filmmakers are attached."

You may purchase the book (French/English) here

This bilingual publication is also released as enhanced e-Book via iBooks/iTunes (EPUB format), a digital version allowing the reader to move seamlessly between viewing and reading.

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