Elizabeth Czach

Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts - English & Film Studies Dept

Pronouns: she, her, hers

Contact

Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts - English & Film Studies Dept
Email
czach@ualberta.ca
Address
3-75 Humanities Centre
11121 Saskatchewan Drive NW
Edmonton AB
T6G 2H5

Overview

About

Before coming to the University of Alberta I was a programmer of Canadian film at the Toronto International Film Festival (1995-2005). I'm past president of the Film Studies Association of Canada and current co-editor of the Canadian Journal of Film Studies


Research

My research can be roughly divided into three areas: film festivals, Canadian film, and amateur films and home movies. I have published widely in all three areas including a co-edited volume with AndrĂ© Loiselle, Cinema of Pain: On Quebec's Nostalgic Screen (2020), and a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Film Studies on 16mm in Canada (31.2, Fall 2022), co-edited with Haidee Wasson. 

My interest in amateur film has led me to a long-term, archive intense, research project on women travel lecture filmmakers in North America, who were active from roughly the 1930-1980s. Tentatively titled, Your Ticket to Adventure, this project recovers the professional filmmaking careers of women working as directors of 16mm films. 

I am also working on a short monograph on Quebec auteur Lea Pool's lesbian coming of age classic Emporte Moi. 


Teaching

My undergraduate teaching includes introductory courses in film analysis and film history. Upper level offerings span courses on animation, the horror film, Quebec cinema, and English-Canadian cinema. I have taught fourth-year seminars on film criticism, film festivals, women and the silent screen, and the films of Wes Anderson, among others. Some of the graduate-level directed reading courses I have taught include feminist television, ethnographic film, arctic cinema, and the Canadian B movie.

Courses

FS 201 - Introduction to Film History I

A survey of world cinema from 1890 to 1950, with emphasis on major historical developments and important individual films. Prerequisite or corequisite: FS 100. Not to be taken by students with credit in FS 200.


FS 321 - Animation

An overview of the development of the animated film in a global context. Production practices may include pin screen, cell, clay, collage, stop-motion, and computer animation. Prerequisite: FS 100.


FS 412 - Topics in Film Studies

A seminar-based examination of specialized topics in film. Prerequisite: FS 100.


Browse more courses taught by Elizabeth Czach

Featured Publications

'Instruire tout en divertissant': les film d’expédition et les conferences de voyage de la National Geographic Society

Liz Czach

Le cinéma d’éxpedition: une zone de contact cinématographique. 2022 September; Sous la direction de Caroline Damiens (Paris: Association Française de Recherche sur l’histoire de cinema):285-305


Searching as Researching: Refusing the Archival Lacunae

Liz Czach

Feminist Media Histories. 2022 April; 8 (2):213-223


Travelling the World with a Smile: James Fitzpatrick’s Traveltalk.

Liz Czach

New York: AFI/Routledge. 2020 December; In Cinema of Exploration: Essays on Adventurous Film Practice, edited by James Leo Cahill and Luca Caminati


Liz Czach and André Loiselle (editors)

Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press. 2020 July;


The Quebec Heritage Film

Liz Czach

Cinema of Pain: On Quebec’s Nostalgic Screen. Edited by Liz Czach and André Loiselle. 2020 July;


Now, For Greater Enjoyment…The Home Movie Soundtrack Album

Liz Czach

The Soundtrack Album: Listening to Media edited by Laurel Westrup and Paul Reinsch.. 2020 February;


Xavier Dolan’s J’ai tué ma mère and Québec’s New Cinema of mise-en-scène

Liz Czach

In ReFocus: The Films of Xavier Dolan, edited by Andrée Lafontaine. 2019 August;


The Sound of Amateur Film

Liz Czach

Film History . 2018 September; Volume 30 (Issue 3):71-102


Bon Cop, Bad Cop: A Tale of Two Star Systems

Liz Czach

Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press. 2016 June; Celebrity Cultures in Canada. Edited by Katja Lee and Lorraine York.


Czach, Liz

Film Festivals: Theory, History, Method, Practice.. 2016 January; Eds. Brendan Kredell, Skadi Loist, Marijke de Valck (New York and London: Routledge):196-208


Home Movies and Amateur Film as National Cinema

Liz Czach

London: Bloomsbury Academic. 2014 February; Amateur Filmmaking: The Home Movie, the Archive, the Web. Edited by Laura Rascaroli, Gwenda Young with Barry Monahan


Czach, Liz

Cinephemera: Archives, Ephemeral Cinema, and New Screen Histories in Canada. 2014 January; Eds. Gerda Cammaer and Zoe Druick (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press):73-93


The Transnational Career of Geneviève Bujold

Liz Czach

New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2013 February; Transnational Stardom: International Celebrity in Film and Popular Culture. Edited by Russell Meeuf and Raphael Raphael.


Theorizing Film Acting

Ed. Aaron Taylor. 2012 January; New York: Routledge


Czach, Liz

Canadian Television: Text and Context. 2011 January; Eds. Marian Bredin, Scott Henderson and Sarah A. Matheson (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press):59-72


Cinephilia, Stars, and Film Festivals

Liz Czach

Cinema Journal. 2010 August; 49 (2):139-45


Cómo 'mejorar' las películas. El discurso de perfeccionamiento y la interpretación en el cine doméstico

Liz Czach

Madrid: Ocho y medio. 2010 June; El cine domestico y sus reciclajes contemporaneos edited by Efren Cuevas


Michel Regnier's 'Films-Outil'

Liz Czach

Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press. 2010 February; Challenge for Change: Activist Documentary at the National Film Board of Canada edited by Ezra Winton, Michael Baker and Tom Waugh


Czach, Liz

The Moving Image. 2004 January; 4 (1):76-88


Polavision Instant Movies: Edwin Land’s Quest for a New Medium

Liz Czach

The Moving Image. 2002 June; 2 (2):1-24