Alison Smith

I study, teach and write about European cinema, especially French cinema. At the moment I am particularly interested in films which represent speakers of different languages co-existing and interacting within the plot; the way in which these exchanges are managed can be very revealing of how films, and their audiences, imagine cultural exchange. I have also written about how French political cinema was, and remains to some extent, marked by 1968, on the work of particular directors such as Agnès Varda and Jacques Rivette, and on career opportunities for women as cinematographers in the French film industry.