ABSTRACT
This introduction identifies the animist imagination as an emerging mode of filmmaking and delineates its fundamental features, the logic of its worldview, and the elicited spectatorship. Particular focus is placed on its central narrative figures, described as shamanic. I then specify the historical backdrop of the animist imagination by contextualizing it within two interrelated discourses: the revival of animism within contemporary ecocriticism and the incorporation of anima into the theorization of cinema from its inception. I further explain why East Asian cinema serves as my chosen site to examine the animist imagination, arguing that this mode of filmmaking delineates the potentials and limitations of an area-based approach to ecocinema.
