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 André 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 100 - Introduction to Film Study

Introduction to basic formal concepts in film analysis including mise-en-scène, cinematographic properties, editing, and sound, as well as narrative qualities.


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 309 - Quebec Film

History and aesthetic developments in Quebec film, from 1930s to present. Prerequisite: FS 100.


FS 324 - Monsters, Slashers and Ghosts

Examines the horror genre from the silent era to the present. Prerequisite: FS 100.


FS 412 - Topics in Film Studies

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


FS 521 - Directed Reading Course I


Browse more courses taught by Elizabeth Czach

Publications

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

Author(s): Liz Czach
Publication Date: 9/1/2022
Publication: Le cinéma d’éxpedition: une zone de contact cinématographique
Volume: Sous la direction de Caroline Damiens
Issue: Paris: Association Française de Recherche sur l’histoire de cinema
Page Numbers: 285-305

Searching as Researching: Refusing the Archival Lacunae

Author(s): Liz Czach
Publication Date: 4/2/2022
Publication: Feminist Media Histories
Volume: 8
Issue: 2
Page Numbers: 213-223

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

Author(s): Liz Czach
Publication Date: 12/29/2020
Publication: New York: AFI/Routledge
Volume: In Cinema of Exploration: Essays on Adventurous Film Practice, edited by James Leo Cahill and Luca Caminati
Page Numbers: 124-142

Cinema of Pain: On Quebec's Nostalgic Screen

Author(s): Liz Czach and André Loiselle (editors)
Publication Date: 7/29/2020
Publication: Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press
External Link: https://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Books/C/Cinema-of-Pain

The Quebec Heritage Film

Author(s): Liz Czach
Publication Date: 7/1/2020
Publication: Cinema of Pain: On Quebec’s Nostalgic Screen. Edited by Liz Czach and André Loiselle
Page Numbers: 41-59

Now, For Greater Enjoyment…The Home Movie Soundtrack Album

Author(s): Liz Czach
Publication Date: 2/28/2020
Publication: The Soundtrack Album: Listening to Media edited by Laurel Westrup and Paul Reinsch.
Page Numbers: 211-228.

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

Author(s): Liz Czach
Publication Date: 8/1/2019
Publication: In ReFocus: The Films of Xavier Dolan, edited by Andrée Lafontaine
Page Numbers: 119-135

The Sound of Amateur Film

Author(s): Liz Czach
Publication Date: 9/1/2018
Publication: Film History
Volume: Volume 30
Issue: Issue 3
Page Numbers: 71-102

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

Author(s): Liz Czach
Publication Date: 6/1/2016
Publication: Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press
Volume: Celebrity Cultures in Canada. Edited by Katja Lee and Lorraine York.
Page Numbers: 131-146

Affective Labor and the Work of Film Festival Programming

Author(s): Czach, Liz
Publication Date: 2016
Publication: Film Festivals: Theory, History, Method, Practice.
Volume: Eds. Brendan Kredell, Skadi Loist, Marijke de Valck
Issue: New York and London: Routledge
Page Numbers: 196-208

Home Movies and Amateur Film as National Cinema

Author(s): Liz Czach
Publication Date: 2/27/2014
Publication: London: Bloomsbury Academic
Volume: Amateur Filmmaking: The Home Movie, the Archive, the Web. Edited by Laura Rascaroli, Gwenda Young with Barry Monahan
Page Numbers: 27-37

A Thrill Every Minute! Travel-Adventure Film Lectures in the Post-War Era

Author(s): Czach, Liz
Publication Date: 2014
Publication: Cinephemera: Archives, Ephemeral Cinema, and New Screen Histories in Canada
Volume: Eds. Gerda Cammaer and Zoe Druick
Issue: Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press
Page Numbers: 73-93

The Transnational Career of Geneviève Bujold

Author(s): Liz Czach
Publication Date: 2/1/2013
Publication: New York: Palgrave Macmillan
Volume: Transnational Stardom: International Celebrity in Film and Popular Culture. Edited by Russell Meeuf and Raphael Raphael.
Page Numbers: 91-114

Acting and Performance in Home Movies and Amateur Film.

Author(s): Theorizing Film Acting
Publication Date: 2012
Publication: Ed. Aaron Taylor
Volume: New York: Routledge
Page Numbers: 152-166

Television, Film and the Canadian Star System

Author(s): Czach, Liz
Publication Date: 2011
Publication: Canadian Television: Text and Context
Volume: Eds. Marian Bredin, Scott Henderson and Sarah A. Matheson
Issue: Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press
Page Numbers: 59-72

Cinephilia, Stars, and Film Festivals

Author(s): Liz Czach
Publication Date: 8/20/2010
Publication: Cinema Journal
Volume: 49
Issue: 2
Page Numbers: 139-45

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

Author(s): Liz Czach
Publication Date: 6/1/2010
Publication: Madrid: Ocho y medio
Volume: El cine domestico y sus reciclajes contemporaneos edited by Efren Cuevas
Page Numbers: 61-87

Michel Regnier's 'Films-Outil'

Author(s): Liz Czach
Publication Date: 2/1/2010
Publication: Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press
Volume: Challenge for Change: Activist Documentary at the National Film Board of Canada edited by Ezra Winton, Michael Baker and Tom Waugh
Page Numbers: 242-250

“Film Festivals, Programming, and the Building of a National Cinema.”

Author(s): Czach, Liz
Publication Date: 2004
Publication: The Moving Image
Volume: 4
Issue: 1
Page Numbers: 76-88

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

Author(s): Liz Czach
Publication Date: 6/15/2002
Publication: The Moving Image
Volume: 2
Issue: 2
Page Numbers: 1-24