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Zecchi, Barbara, coord. Gynocine: Teoría de género, filmología y praxis cinematográfica. Zaragoza and Amherst: U of Zaragoza P; U of Massachusetts P, 2013. 328 pp.
This volume is a necessary contribution to the field of Spanish film studies in that it provides extensive critical attention to women film directors in Spain. It includes a selection of essays that range from personal accounts within the Spanish film industry from director Inés París and Goya winning screen writer Alicia Luna to sophisticated analyses of Spanish female directors who are reshaping cinematic genres. The introduction, by coordinator Barbara Zecchi, outlines a framework for the volume, specifically what she terms "gynocine." Gynocine is a term coined by Zecchi in response to the limitations surrounding terms such as "cine feminista," "cine femenino", and "cine de mujeres" within the Spanish film industry. The term draws on American literary critic Elaine Showalter's concept of "gynocriticism" ("Towards a Feminist Poetics," 1979), a critical posture aimed at constructing an independent space for female writers in the literary sphere. Gynocine distinguishes itself from cine feminista and cine femenino in that rather than focusing on the particular intellectual aims of a film or its director, it places an emphasis on the ability of the viewer to read existing gender dynamics in a film regardless of its intended ideological meaning. A second aspect that distinguishes gynocine is that it does not necessarily have to be directed by a woman, setting it apart from the category cine de mujeres. Additionally, Zecchi argues that while not all films directed or produced by women may be feminist, they do pertain to the category of gynocine since- regardless of their individual principles-no woman that works in the...