Includes bibliographical references and index.

Machine generated contents note: pt. I Issues of Colonialism, Late Colonialism and Independence -- 1. The People's Action Party Government of Singapore and Berita Singapura / Ian Aitken -- 2. Merdeka for Malaya: Imagining Independence across the British Empire / Tom Rice -- 3. The Language of Counterinsurgency in Malaya: Dialectical Soundscapes of Salvage and Warfare / Peter J. Bloom -- 4. Figures of Empire: American Documentaries in the Philippines / Jose B. Capino -- pt. II Missionary Films and Christian Evangelism -- 5. Two Films and a Coronation: The Containment of Islam in Flores in the 1920s / Sandeep Ray -- 6. Paradoxical Legacies: Colonial Missionary Films, Corporate Philanthropy in South Asia and the Griersonian Documentary Tradition / Annamaria Motrescu-Mayes -- 7. Conversion, Salvation and the 'Civilising Mission': Christian Missions and Documentary Film in India (1900-60) / Emma Sandon -- pt. III Documentary Representations: Projections, Idealised and Imaginary Images -- 8. Screening the Revolution in Rural Vietnam: Guerrilla Cinema Across the Mekong Delta / Thong Win -- 9. Ho Chi Minh in France: An Early Independence Newsreel / Dean Wilson -- 10. Archives of the Planet: French Elitist Representations of Colonial India / Camille Deprez -- 11. 'Sufficient Dramatic or Adventure Interest': Authenticity, Reality and Violence in Pre-War Animal Documentaries from South-East Asia / Timothy P. Barnard.

Based on rare archival documents and films, this anthology is the first to focus primarily on the use of official and colonial documentary films in the South and South-East Asian regions. Drawing together a range of international scholars, the book sheds new light on historical, theoretical and empirical issues pertaining to the documentary film, in order to better comprehend the significant transformations of the form in the colonial, late colonial and immediate post-colonial period. Covering diverse geographical and colonial contexts in countries like Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Hong Kong, and focusing on under-researched or little-known films, it demonstrate the complex set of relations between the colonisers and the colonised throughout the region.