As parallel climate and public health crises highlight the extent to which the experiences of communities worldwide are inextricably connected, there is an increasing urgency to find ways of illuminating aspects of solidarity, common concern and shared experience globally across cultures and communities. Responding to this imperative, this project will mount the first ever global study of a folk cinema both within film studies and the wider humanities, a new comparative space in which the experiences of diverse communities can be interconnected. Whilst disparate scholars have mentioned in passing the notion of a folk cinema (Gabriel (1982), Landy (1994)), there has yet to be undertaken any overarching study exploring the full implications such a notion holds globally for world cinema. And yet: examples of a folk cinema - a cinema not only FOR the people, but OF the people, BY the people - lie scattered throughout cinema history, from the films made collectively with working class communities over half a century by Newcastle's Amber Collective, the use of cinema as a form of cultural continuity within ancient Inuit oral traditions by Zacharius Kunuk, or Alicia Rohrwacher's recent cinematic retellings of Italian folk tales. Drawing upon an interdisciplinary framework (including aspects of culture studies, ethnology and political theory) this project will seek to illuminate previously unconnected instances of a folk cinema, highlighting important commonalities of practice and aspects of shared experience between filmmakers and traditions of cinema in very different parts of the world. In doing so, the project will propose a transformative new perspective within film studies and the wider humanities, exploring the possibility of a 'globalization from below' (Appadurai, 2001) in which global interconnectedness is theorised from the ground upwards through the establishment of cross-cultural solidarities, rather than imposed from above by the aggressive transnationalism of neoliberal capital. In inaugurating an inclusive, cross-cultural space in which diverse community traditions, experiences and practices can be placed alongside each other in solidarity, a folk cinema will present an important counter to contemporary right-wing populisms in which community tradition tends to be rehearsed in the exclusive and protectionist terms of nativism and xenophobia. The project will produce the first scholarly monograph to explore the global phenomenon of a folk cinema. Beyond traditional scholarly outputs, the project will also seek to explore the emergent questions of a folk cinema through aspects of research-as-practice, exploring the interface between cinema and community experience both through film exhibition practice (through two editions of a public film festival), and the complex process through which community oral traditions are translated into cinema within a localised Scottish context, through the completion of a feature-length documentary film. Key aspects of preparatory research and production have already been undertaken, and the fellowship will afford the opportunity to write up the monograph and complete post-production on the film to the professional standard required for it to achieve the widest public impact through frontline film festivals and broadcast television. The fellowship will also allow for crucial aspects of early career development and engagement. I will benefit from world-leading mentorship from Professor Edward Hollis (CAHSS Associate Dean of Research at UoE) and previous AHRC standard grant recipient Professor Will Higbee (University of Exeter), and from the chance to attend two research leadership courses run by Edinburgh University's Institute of Academic Development. The fellowship will also create significant opportunities for my research to engage with a broad community of scholars, filmmakers and interested publics through two symposia, a film festival, and a public-facing website.

This application is to support impact and engagement activities resulting from Dr Steve Presence's AHRC ECR grant, 'UK Feature Docs: Studying the Feature Documentary Film Industry' (2018-2020, from here 'UKFD'). The application proposes the creation of a new national organisation for UK documentary - the Documentary Film Council (DFC) - that has been co-conceived by the research team in collaboration with the leading organisations in the industry. The DFC will consist of a range of working groups that address the different needs and represent the different sub-sectors in the documentary industry. The specific aim of this project is to target Follow-on Funding at key elements of this proposed organisational infrastructure: the core work required to establish the DFC, and the specific activities of its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and Mental Health working groups. This strategic use of funds will directly support the foundations of the DFC and address two of the most pressing industry-wide issues - diversity and mental health - while also animating the DFC's broader organisational infrastructure and stimulating activity across all the DFC's proposed working groups. The UKFD project was primarily a work of cultural history that explored the evolution of documentary as a cinematic form over the past two decades. However, the project also included a more future-facing research strand that aimed to investigate the challenges faced by those working in the sector today. This strand of the project expanded well beyond its original scope following high levels of stakeholder engagement and the formation of close relationships with leading industry bodies. As the research developed, it emerged that policymakers in the film and television industries alike had, for various reasons, largely overlooked the unique needs of the nonfiction sector. As a result, UK documentary was suffering from a range of problems that stemmed from a long-standing lack of tailored support. This work thus exposed an urgent and unforeseen need for widespread policy intervention across the documentary industry. Responding to this need, the UKFD research team scaled-up their originally modest plans to explore challenges in the sector. In partnership with Doc Society - the lead body for documentary in England - and with additional 0.4 RA support, funded by UWE in recognition of this expanded remit, in April 2019 the UKFD team launched what became the largest survey ever conducted of UK documentary producers and directors. The results were published by the UKFD team in June, which in turn became the basis for an extensive sector-wide consultation in summer and autumn 2020, the results of which were published in a second major UKFD report in January 2021. This Follow-On Funding bid is the product of this unanticipated and unforeseeable research trajectory. The proposed project builds on the original UKFD research and takes it in a significant, innovative and exciting new direction. The proposed structure and reach of the DFC is without precedent in the UK screen sector. It will generate a range of creative, innovative and evidence-based interventions across the documentary industry, and will attract national and international attention, engaging a genuinely diverse range of new audiences and user communities. As evidenced by the UKFD project research, many of the issues and challenges facing the documentary industry can only be addressed via sustained and collective commitment to the problems at hand. A secure and sustainable cross-sector infrastructure is a precondition to building and maintaining such commitment. With support from the AHRC at this crucial stage, this project will provide that infrastructure to the UK documentary sector, delivering significant cultural, economic and social benefits to the sector and its audiences and ensuring the impact of AHRC-funded research is felt across the UK screen sector and beyond for years to come.