This special issue of South East Asia Research draws together articles from a number of different directions, each indicative of the growing importance and popularity of South East Asian cinema as a field of teaching and research. The articles are the work of scholars trained in a variety of academic disciplines, from anthropology and sociology to literature and film studies, again reflecting the range of disciplinary origins from which the study of South East Asian cinema has emerged. This collection of papers, then, represents an intervention into South East Asia area studies from the perspective of cinema. As such, it con tributes to a growing body of publications in the field, underscoring certain key foci and themes of concern and also serving to fill some of the current lacunae in its scholarship. At present these lacunae make themselves most keenly felt in the teaching of South East Asian cinema in universities outside the region, primarily reliant on publications in the English language. As courses on South East Asian cinema at both undergraduate and postgraduate level grow in number and popularity in universities throughout the world, from Australia to the UK and the USA, the lack of coverage, in particular, of the national cinemas of Cambodia, Laos and Burma (Myanmar) creates difficulties in referring to the region as a whole. To date, publications in English on film production in South East Asia have been weighted towards the study of Indonesian national cinema, supported by the prolific output of Krishna Sen (see Sen, 1982, 1985a and b, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991a and b, 1993, 1994 and 2006; and Sen and Hill, 2000) in addition to works by David Hanan (1995), Karl Heider (1991), Misbach YusaBiran (1982 and 1987), Marshall Clark (2004) and Saman Said (1990, 1991 and 1992). In comparison, few publications have been produced on the