Refocus: Edinburgh University Press Refocus: The Films of Kira Muratova / Book / 328 pages / 2026

Spanning six decades, her seventeen features and four shorts move from the late Soviet era to post-Soviet Ukraine, breaking cinematic rules with repetition, collage, unruly performance and a tactile, object-rich world. This volume reframes Muratova as an autrice working from the margins and proposes ‘ex-cinema’ as a central concept in her radical practice at the edges of language, genre, and empire. Across four parts, leading and emerging scholars examine form and style, gender and queer aesthetics, ethics and community and Muratova’s dialogues with European cinema. Attending to decolonial questions, feminist perspectives, and the politics of visibility, the volume shows how her films unsettle canons and centres while tracing the collective artistry behind them. ???????It offers an accessible, interdisciplinary guide to a singular filmmaker and fresh scholarship for students, researchers and cinephiles.