Includes bibliographical references and index

Introduction : Filmmaking, mythmaking, culture making / S. Brent Plate -- Jai Santoshi Maa revisited : on seeing a Hindu "mythological" film / Philip Lutgendorf -- "My story begins before I was born" : myth, history, and power in Julie Dash's Daughters of the dust / Judith Weisenfeld -- Orpheus on screen : open and closed forms / Linda C. Ehrlich -- Between time and eternity : theological notes on Shadows and fog / Paul Nathanson -- The art of presence : Buddhism and Korean films / Francisca Cho -- Pentecostalism, prosperity, and popular cinema in Ghana / Birgit Meyer -- The Islamic apocalypse : Mohsen Makhmalbaf's moment of innocence / Lloyd Ridgeon -- Performative pilgrims and the shifting grounds of anthropological documentary / Luis A. Vivanco -- Perfumed nightmare : religion and the Philippine postcolonial struggle in third cinema / Antonio D. Sison -- Pathologies of violence : religion and postcolonial identity in New Zealand cinema / Janet Wilson -- Santeria and the quest for a postcolonial identity in post-revolutionary Cuban cinema / Edna M. Rodriguez-Mangual -- "The eyes of all people are upon us" : American civil religion and the birth of Hollywood / Kris Jozajtis.