This edition of World Affairs in Foreign Films, 2nd edition is written for high school and college students as well as for adults of all ages. 14 films from around the world offer insights into fascinating countries and cultures. We are all visual learners and film has the power to capture our imagination and take us to places that we have never known before. Seeing is believing, and to be transported into the middle of a foreign country as it is today, and then to discuss it, offers us the opportunity to experience diverse ways of living and to better understand America in the global community. Foreign films give us the experience of traveling beyond borders and without a plane ticket or visa. Film has the power to show the relationship of geography with history, the interaction of economics and politics and the unifying message of the heart. Film speaks a universal language that helps us understand what we share in common. It encourages us to ask questions, open our minds to the unknown, and go beyond our limits to learn. Film has the power to connect us all. Lovers of cinema and world affairs will enjoy this innovative book and its multi-disciplinary format with questions and information at the end of 9 perspectives of learning. The group discussions focus on analyzing global problems from diverse points of views as well as thinking critically and sharing ideas. Perfect for classrooms, Board rooms, Book clubs and all groups who enjoy learning about different cultures through FILM.

There is nothing so engaging, so true to life as film to transport students to unfamiliar places. This textbook introduces foreign cultures and global concepts through 13 award-winning films from around the world: Osama (Afghanistan); Persepolis (Iran/France); Water (India); Beijing Bicycle (China); Tokyo Sonata (Japan); Tsotsi (South Africa); Hotel Rwanda (Rwanda); War Dance (Uganda); Central Station (Brazil); March of the Penguins (Antarctica/France); Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (Germany); The Counterfeiters (Austria); Pearl (U.S.A., Chickasaw Nation). Each is chosen for its richness as a basis for discussions in history, geography, economics, government, literature, music, and art. This multi-disciplinary primer encourages critical thinking and group activities and offers new perspectives on international affairs. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

World Affairs in Foreign Films offers teachers and students of Middle School the opportunity to experience foreign cultures through the power of film. There are 12 chapters about 12 films from 12 countries, using a a multi-disciplinary format of analyzing each film from 9 perspectives: history, geography, government, economics, literature, critical thinking, media studies, art, and technology. At the end of each perspective are activities and assignments with answers for all the questions. Group activities focus on problem solving, critical thinking, analysis, synthesis, sharing and discussing ideas.This text teaches Global Education, General Culture, How to Think and Learn, and Diversity of cultures. Film is a fun way to learn for visual learners and film offers students the pleasure of traveling to learn.

For readers who loved films like Diva, Last Tango in Paris, Breathless, and Gallipoli, here is an invaluable resource for discovering more of the great international films readily available on video. This encyclopedic guide provides reviews by the nation's leading critics, such as Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris, Roger Ebert, Richard Schickel, and J. Hoberman. Photographs.

International Politics and Film introduces readers to the representational qualities of film but also draws attention to how the relationship between the visual and the spatial is constitutive of international politics. Using four themes—borders, the state of exception, homeland and distant others—the territorial and imaginative dimensions of international affairs in particular are highlighted. But this volume also makes clear that international politics is not just something "out there"; film helps us better understand how it is also part of everyday life within the state—affecting individuals and communities in different ways depending on axes of difference such as gender, race, class, age, and ethnicity.

Winner - 2022 Richard Wall Memorial Award, Theatre Library Association Beginning in the 1920s, audiences around the globe were seduced not only by Hollywood films but also by lavish movie theaters that were owned and operated by the major American film companies. These theaters aimed to provide a quintessentially “American” experience. Outfitted with American technology and accoutrements, they allowed local audiences to watch American films in an American-owned cinema in a distinctly American way. In a history that stretches from Buenos Aires and Tokyo to Johannesburg and Cairo, Ross Melnick considers these movie houses as cultural embassies. He examines how the exhibition of Hollywood films became a constant flow of political and consumerist messaging, selling American ideas, products, and power, especially during fractious eras. Melnick demonstrates that while Hollywood’s marketing of luxury and consumption often struck a chord with local audiences, it was also frequently tone-deaf to new social, cultural, racial, and political movements. He argues that the story of Hollywood’s global cinemas is not a simple narrative of cultural and industrial indoctrination and colonization. Instead, it is one of negotiation, booms and busts, successes and failures, adoptions and rejections, and a precursor to later conflicts over the spread of American consumer culture. A truly global account, Hollywood’s Embassies shows how the entanglement of worldwide movie theaters with American empire offers a new way of understanding film history and the history of U.S. soft power.

Winner, 2023 Shapiro Best Book Award, Association for Israel Studies From Frank Sinatra’s early pro-Zionist rallying to Steven Spielberg’s present-day peacemaking, Hollywood has long enjoyed a “special relationship” with Israel. This book offers a groundbreaking account of this relationship, both on and off the screen. Tony Shaw and Giora Goodman investigate the many ways in which Hollywood’s moguls, directors, and actors have supported or challenged Israel for more than seven decades. They explore the complex story of Israel’s relationship with American Jewry and illuminate how media and soft power have shaped the Arab-Israeli conflict. Shaw and Goodman draw on a vast range of archival sources to demonstrate how show business has played a pivotal role in crafting the U.S.-Israel alliance. They probe the influence of Israeli diplomacy on Hollywood’s output and lobbying activities, but also highlight the limits of ideological devotion in high-risk entertainment industries. The book details the political involvement with Israel—and Palestine—of household names such as Eddie Cantor, Kirk Douglas, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbra Streisand, Vanessa Redgrave, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert De Niro, and Natalie Portman. It also spotlights the role of key behind-the-scenes players like Dore Schary, Arthur Krim, Arnon Milchan, and Haim Saban. Bringing the story up to the moment, Shaw and Goodman contend that the Hollywood-Israel relationship might now be at a turning point. Shedding new light on the political power that images and celebrity can wield, Hollywood and Israel shows the world’s entertainment capital to be an important player in international affairs.