| Summary/Abstract |
In contemporary international relations, we are facing a lively discussion among scholars who are using all sorts of visual artifacts. Since representations of international politics in popular culture and mass media have been theorized more systematically, fictional films, TV series, as well as non-fictional documentaries have become relevant research objects. What is still missing is a conceptualization of the genre located between fictional and non-fictional film—docudrama. This genre is highly relevant for IR because many filmmakers have specialized in docudramatic depictions of historic events or more recent issues in international politics in which facts and fiction are combined into narratives about the events and the behavior of the people involved. But analyzing films is not unproblematic. Although a debate on the importance of film analysis in IR is occurring, methodological reflections have only just begun. Accordingly, this article draws on a film analytical methodology developed by Bordwell, which is applied to a docudrama about the Kunduz airstrike of September 2009.
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