Western neoliberalism is a predatory outgrowth of late capitalism that
overvalues competition, transferring the laws of the market to human
relationships. This book advances the argument that anti-neoliberal
cinemas of Europe, the United States, and the Russian Federation imagine
and visualize alternatives to the non-sovereign realities of a
neoliberal workplace that unequivocally endorses dangerous risk-taking,
self-optimizing neoliberal subjects, and corporate 'entrepreneurs of
self.' Always at stake in the examination of neoliberalism's
consequences is a human being who is indexed by race, gender, nation,
ability, and economic performance.
Drawing on film theory, transnational social histories, critical race
theory, and Marxist and Foucauldian interpretive models, this book
rediscovers a cinema that imagines a social contract focused on the
common good and ethical standards for the social state. Anti-neoliberal
cinema empowers the viewer as agentive through narratives that detail
resistance to Western neoliberal modes of living and working. These
filmmakers dramatize the labor of making solidarity across different
groups.