This collection examines two recent phenomena: the return of realist tendencies and practices in world cinema and television, and the 'rehabilitation' of realism in film and media theory.The contributors investigate these two phenomena in detail, querying their origins, relations, divergences and intersections from a variety of perspectives."

Andre Bazin's famous article, 'Pour un cinema impur: defense de l'adaptation', was first translated into English simply as 'In Defence of Mixed Cinema', probably to avoid any uncomfortable sexual or racial resonances the word 'impure' might have. Impure Cinema goes back to Bazin's original title precisely for its defense of impurity, applying it on the one hand to cinema's interbreeding with other arts and on the other to its ability to convey and promote cultural diversity.

In contemporary progressive film criticism, ideas of purity, essence and origin have been superseded by...