The Biopolitical Turn in World Cinema

Visual Landscapes of Social Power

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by Luca Barattoni

Type

Studies

Subject

Sociology

Keywords

sociology, politics, global, revolutionary

Publishing date

2026 (March 01, 2026)

Publisher

State University of New York Press

Collection

SUNY series, Horizons of Cinema

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Hardcover • 326 pages
6 x 9 inches (15 x 23 cm)

ISBN

979-8-8558-0583-3

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Book Presentation:
Explores biopolitical currents in world cinema, paying particular attention to postsocialist and postrevolutionary filmmakers from Iran, Russia, China, and Romania.

The Biopolitical Turn in World Cinema explores how cinematic form and content understand and represent relationships of power between the state and life itself. Cinema, it argues, is both technical apparatus and aesthetic object and as such is imminently biopolitical, both as a medium of governmental control and as a site of resistance. The book analyzes a range of cinematic movements, paying particular attention to postsocialist and postrevolutionary filmmakers from Iran (Asghar Farhadi), Russia (Sergei Loznitsa), China (Xiaoshuai Wang), and Romania (Radu Jude). The book concludes by looking toward filmmakers-from Jordan Peele to Albert Serra-who further illuminate the limits of biopolitical paradigms, offering new ways of understanding contemporary political and ethical challenges posed by neoliberal globalization. While this book will appeal to film studies specialists, it is also a comprehensive introduction to film theory and biopolitical thought that will appeal to nonacademic and student readers with an interest in the subjects.

About the Author:
Luca Barattoni is Associate Professor of World Cinema at Clemson University and the author of Italian Post-Neorealist Cinema.

Press Reviews:
"Barattoni's The Biopolitical Turn in World Cinema describes with laser-sharp precision the current state of play in both film philosophy and film studies. Its original theoretical framework combines Foucault's 'bio power' and Agamben's 'biopolitics' with recent nonhuman and animistic approaches to substantiate the analysis of films picked from post-socialist and post-revolutionary regions, where political oppression results in harm to and often destruction of the human body and life. A highly recommended read for both scholars and lovers of world cinema." - Lúcia Nagib, author of Realist Cinema as World Cinema: Non-cinema, Intermedial Passages, Total Cinema

"Barattoni's The Biopolitical Turn in World Cinema describes with laser-sharp precision the current state of play in both film philosophy and film studies. Its original theoretical framework combines Foucault's 'bio power' and Agamben's 'biopolitics' with recent nonhuman and animistic approaches to substantiate the analysis of films picked from post-socialist and post-revolutionary regions, where political oppression results in harm to and often destruction of the human body and life. A highly recommended read for both scholars and lovers of world cinema." -- Lúcia Nagib, author of Realist Cinema as World Cinema: Non-cinema, Intermedial Passages, Total Cinema

See the publisher website: State University of New York Press