Severe cuts in the arts currently happening in the UK have slashed the BFI and is now threatening the existence of one of the oldest, best organized and audience- as well as industry-friendly LGBT film festivals in the world. There is a petition to support the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (2011 in its 25th edition).
Follow this link to get more background information and to sign the petition.
Dear Festival Researchers,
For those of you attending SCMS New Orleans next week, please take note of the following two meetings, one formal (the inaugural General Meeting of the Film Festival Scholarly Interest Group for SCMS), and the other informal (“Cinq à Sept” drinks and conversation at the famous Old Absinthe House)!
Both events take place on Friday, March 11, also following two panels the same day. Once the General Meeting wraps up, we will stroll over to the Absinthe House. We hope to see you there!
Session G at 3:15-5:00 PM on Friday, March 11 in the Boardroom, Level Two, Ritz Carlton Hotel
Check out the conference program.
5-7 PM, Friday, March 11, 2011
Venue: Old Absinthe House, 240 Bourbon Street, New Orleans (+1 504 523-3181)
Located a few blocks from the conference hotel. The gathering follows the General Meeting (3:15-5 PM) for the proposed Film Festival Interest Group (SIG) at SCMS. The time was chosen to allow greatest mobility: after the panels, before dinner, before the university parties and other gatherings. (Look for a few sheets of white paper with the word “FESTIVAL” written on them! That should adequately identify us, in case you missed the earlier meeting.) Hope you can fit it into your busy schedules!
(Directions from Ritz Carlton Hotel: walk two streets south along Canal Street, turn left onto Bourbon Street. Pass Iberville Street, Old Absinthe House is on the right, just before Bienville Street.)
On the Old Absinthe House:
“Many c
elebrities have been welcomed through our doors in the nearly two centuries since its opening — including Oscar Wilde, P.T. Barnum, Mark Twain, Jenny Lind, Enrico Caruso, General Robert E Lee, Franklin Roosevelt, Liza Minelli and Frank Sinatra. Indeed, the walls throughout this incredible building are covered in the framed photographs of several of our famous patrons.” (from the history section of the website of the Old Absinthe House)
Ger Zielinski
New Territories in Film Festival Studies: Film Festivals and East Asia
Edited by Dina Iordanova and Ruby Cheung
St Andrews Film Studies, 2011; http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/filmbooks
ISBN: 978-0-9563730-3-8 
(paperback) Price: £19.99 (UK)
For a table of contents see here: FFY3 Flyer
The most exciting developments in world cinema over the past two decades have been linked to East Asian countries such as China, Japan and South Korea. Films made in East Asia triumph at festivals around the globe. Booming film markets are attached to the most important film festivals in Hong Kong, Pusan, Tokyo and Shanghai. The West is only just beginning to wake up to the importance of these film festivals to global film distribution.
In their latest volume, Film Festivals and East Asia (2011), scholars from the University of St. Andrews chart cutting-edge developments in global film. Prof. Dina Iordanova has stated: ‘In opening up debates on the worldwide network of film festivals we are laying necessary groundwork for the understanding of global film circulation,’
The publication brings together the work of high profile critics, academics, and festival practitioners based in various East Asian countries and in the West. In recognition of the innovative work featured in the volume, a launch event is being organised at the Hong Kong offices of the British Council, on the eve of the next Hong Kong International Film Festival.
‘The Film Festival Yearbook project represents a unique opportunity to study the multi-faceted phenomenon of film festivals. It focuses on both global networks and local practices and sheds new light on the artistic, economic and political issues that are currently reshaping the global cultural field.’
– Jean-Michel Frodon (Cahiers du cinema)
‘This new anthology captures the enthusiasm for East Asian cinema felt by film lovers and film professionals the world over.’
– Chris Fujiwara (Editor of Undercurrent, FIPRECSI)
‘A vital contribution to both Asian Film Studies and Film Festival Studies.’
– Chris Berry (Professor of Film & TV Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London)
About the editors:
Dina Iordanova is the leading international specialist on global film festivals; she has published a series of volumes on subjects such as The Festival Circuit (2009), Film Festivals and Imagined Communities (2010) and now Film Festivals and East Asia (2011). She is Director of the Centre for Film Studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland where she leads The Leverhulme Trust project ‘Dynamics of World Cinema’ (www.st-andrews.ac.uk/worldcinema).
Ruby Cheung is The Leverhulme Trust Research Associate at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Her research interests include East Asian cinemas, diasporic film distribution, Chinese diasporic on-line fandom and film promotion. She co-edited Cinemas, Identities and Beyond (2009) and Film Festivals and Imagined Communities (2010). Her study on the Chinese-language epic and diasporic spectators appears in The Epic Film in World Culture (Routledge, 2010).
Several members of the FFRN were successful in submitting proposals to the annual conference of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS). The FFRN will be present with one workshop and two panels at the SCMS Conference 2011 in New Orleans, LA, March 10-13.
E19: Workshop: On Theorizing Film Festivals: Past, Present, Future
Chair: Ger Zielinski (Trent University)
Co-chair: Diane Burgess (Simon Fraser University)
Workshop Participants:
F15: Film Festival Politics: The Political, Legal and Structural Discourses of Film Festivals
Chair: Skadi Loist (University of Hamburg)
K3: From A-Festivals to Arthouse Films: Modes of Film Production and Distribution
Chair: Dorota Ostrowska (Birkbeck College, University of London)
In addition to these three panels, there is at least one other panels of interest to film festival researchers:
I2: Cultivating Film Culture: Programming Art, Foreign, and Independent Film
Chair: Kathleen Feeley (University of Redlands)
The full program can be consulted on the SCMS website.
In preparation for the fourth annual NECS conference in London next year we would like to invite scholars working on film festivals (especially members of the Film Festival Research Network (FFRN) & Film Festival Research Work Group) to be part of pre-constituted panel(s) and/or workshop(s). While the conference theme for NECS 2011 London focuses on “sonic futures”, this is not intended to be rigid. The film festival panel(s) will therefore be open to papers on all aspects of research relating to film festivals.
Please contact Skadi Loist (skadi.loist@uni-hamburg.de) before DECEMBER 13, 2010 to register your interest and indicate the possible area of your paper or a topic you would like to discuss with others in the workshop format. We will then work at integrating these interests to form a panel or panels. Speakers will have max. 20 minutes each.
For the eventual panel(s), all presenters are asked to provide a title, an abstract of max. 150 words, 3-5 keywords, 3-5 key bibliographical references, technical requirements, the name of the presenter and institutional affiliation. We therefore ask anyone participating in the panel(s) to have their completed proposals with Skadi by JANUARY 20, 2011 to allow time for preparation of the overall panel(s) description(s) and submission before the general submissions deadline on January 31, 2010. Notification will follow shortly thereafter (around February 28, 2011).
The conference language is English. Conference attendance is free, but NECS membership is required to participate in the conference (register with NECS at the NECS website, www.necs-initiative.org; for the terms of NECS membership, please see the website). Participants will have to cover their own travel and accommodation expenses. Detailed information on NECS and the London conference will be posted on www.necs-initiative.org.
Marijke de Valck (University of Amsterdam)
Skadi Loist (University of Hamburg)
Call for Papers / Appel à communications
International Symposium
24-25-26 November 2011
Centre d’histoire sociale du XXe siècle (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
Centre d’histoire culturelle des sociétés contemporaines (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines)
Although a “cultural object” especially popular in the early 21″ century, festivals have not yet been I examined through collaborative studies or broad historical syntheses. Consequently, we seek to bring together I researchers from different disciplines, working on a variety of geographic areas and familiar with diverse I archives and resources, in a context of contemporary history that may, where necessary, step back in time.
Several questions will be central. How do we tell the history of such artistic events that are both collective and ephemeral? Should we write a singular, or plural, history of festivals? How should we consider the connections between festivals as well as the relationships between festivals and the societies in which they occur? The objective is to examine how the path carved by these artistic forms can not only feed the contemporary debate about “public space”, but also give rise to the concept of “public moments”: festivals as space and time that are communally constructed, shaped, and contested.
The symposium will thus focus on moments of emergence, adoption, and diffusion of the festival “form”, which itself must be examined and defined from different perspectives (including genre, aesthetics, etc.). In the 19th century, the term “festival” applied only to the field of music, especially choral performances. Present in France by means of the “festivals orphéoniques“, the phenomerron was also prevalent in Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Germany and England. Therefore, it will be useful to study this “prehistory” of festivals to identify if, and how, this 19th century heritage influenced the festivals of the 2oth and 21st centuries. The symposium will take into account all forms of transmission and all relevant fields of creation without exception, whether or not connected to “mass culture” and including thase fields considered the least legitimate. Examples may range from theatre, music, cinema, and photography, to comic books, comedy, and songs. We will also examine the different actors, institutional and otherwise, who contribute in one way or another to the creation and development of festivals, including promoter, organizers, artists, critics, and audiences. At the heart of this inquiry will be the forms of festivals that are adopted and the role that those festivals play in their respective societies. We hope to test the use of various typologies based upon different criteria (e.g. specialization, form of dissemination, artists’ staging, etc.).
This symposium, which is a continuation of the two-day workshop organized by the Centre Georges Chevrier (Université de Bourgogne) on February 2011, aims to be comparative and international in its approach: contributions on festivals from all continents are welcome. In this context, the roles of mediation and transmission played by festivals between artists, genres, or societies will be particularly valued, and case studies such as those addressing transnational cultural transfers will be preferred. Finally, the symposium will consider the question of what place festivals hold, and will hold, in the creation of a global culture.
To this end, we have identified several categories of interest:
A/ Definition and Scope
1/ What a festival is and is not
2/ The invention of the festival. Important precursors and early forebears.
3/ Moments of festival creativity. Locations and modes of dissemination and abandonment. Memory and nostalgia.
B/ Formal Perspective
1/ Actors: organization (public or private actors), production (professionals or amateurs), reception (critiques and “the public”)
2/ The festival as event: highlights, use of the media, and scandals. Festivals’ sociability and codes of behavior.
3/ Aesthetic forms: inventions, appropriations, and hybrids.
C/ Functional Perspective
1/ Political, economic and social issues. At local, regional, and national levels
2/ Creative issues. The role of festivals in the history of an artist or a genre (launching, manufacturing, consecration …)
3/ Issues of international cultural relations. Cultural transfers, migrations, and circulations: locations and players. Relationships between festivals. Festivals’ contributions to global culture.
Papers will be presented in French and in English.
Proposals of one page in length (up to 2,500 signs), along with a short resume, are to be sent before 10 December 2010 to: histoire.festivals@gmail.com
Colloque international
24,25 et 26 novembre 2011
Centre d’histoire sociale du XXe siècle (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
Centre d’histoire culturelle des sociétés contemporaines (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines)
« Objet culturel » particuliérement en vogue au début du xxle siècle, les festivals n’ont, pour l’instant, donné lieu ni à des études collectives ni à de vastes synthèses historiques. Aussi notre ambition est-elle de rassembler des chercheurs de disciplines différentes, travaillant sur des aires geographiques distinctes, bénéficiant d’archives et de témoignages variés, dans une perspective d’histoire contemporaine qui s’autorise,
si nécessaire, à remonter dans le temps.
Plusieurs interrogations seront au ceur de la réflexion. Comment peut-on faire une histoire de ces manifestations artistiques à la fois collectives et éphémères ? Doit-on écrire une histoire singulière ou plurielle des festivals ? Comment réfléchir à l’articulation des festivals entre eux et avec les sociétés dans lesquelles ils se déroulent ? Le pari, Ici, est de considérer que le détour par ces formes artistiques peut non sèulement contribuer à nourrir la question des espaces publics mais aussi à faire émerger l’idée de moments publics : les festivals comme espaces et temps de construction communautaire, d’initiation, de formation, de contestation,
etc.
Le colloque Sera ainsi particulièrement attentif aux moments d’émergence, d’adoption et de diffusion de la « forme » festival, dont il faudra interroger la définition et la pertinence même (genre? catégorie esthétique? variation du spectaculaire?). Au XIXe siècle, le terme « festival » ne s’applique en effet qu’au domaine musical, plus spécialement au répertoire choral. Présent en France par le biais des festivals
orphéoniques, le phénoméne concerne surtout la Suisse, la Belgique, la Hollande et surtout l’Allemagne et l’Angleterre. II conviendra donc d’étudier cette « préhistoire » des festivals pour mesurer si, et comment, l’héritage du XIXe siècle a influencé les festivals des XXe et XXle siécles. Le colloque prendra en compte toutes les formes de transmission et tous les domaines de crèation concernés sans exclusive, relevant de la culture de masse ou non, y compris celles et ceux jueés les moins légitimes : théatre, musique, cinéma, photographie, mais aussi bande dessinée, rire ou chansons. Les différents acteurs, institutionnels ou non, qui contribuent, à un titre ou à un autre, à la fabrication des festivals seront étudiés : promoteurs, organisateurs, artistes,
critiques et publics. Les formes adoptées, les fonctions comme la place que les festivals occupent au sein des sociétés seront au coeur des interrogations. On n’hésitera pas non plus tenter des typologies autour de critéres variés (spécialisation, type de diffusion, d’audience ou de médiation, mise en scène des artistes, etc.).
La perspective de ce colloque, qui se situe dans la continuité des deux journées d’études organisées par le Centre Georges Chevrier à l’Université de Bourgogne en février 2011, se veut à la fois comparatiste et internationale : les contributions sur les festivals des différents continents seront donc les bienvenues. Dans ce cadre, les rôles de médiation et de passage joués par les festivals entre les artistes, les genres ou les sociétés devront être tout particulièrement étudiés. Les études de cas transnationales comme celles portant sur les transferts seront privilégiées. Enfin, la question se posera de l’éventuelleplace que les festivals tiennent dans la constitution d’une culture mondiale.
A cette fin, plusieurs axes ont été retenus :
A/ Définition et champ
1/ Ce qu’est un festival et ce qu’il n’est pas
2/ L’invention du festival. Grands ancêtres et festivals matriciels
3/ Moments de créativité festivalihre. Lieux et modes de diffusion et d’abandon. Mémoire et nostalgie
B/ Perspective formelle
1/ Acteurs. Organisation (acteurs publics ou privés), production (professionnels ou amateurs), reception (critiques, publics)
2/ Le festival comme événement : temps forts, mobilisation médiatique et scandales. Sociabilités et usages festivaliers
3/ Les formes esthétiques : inventions, emprunts, métissages
C/ Perspective fonctionnelle
1/ Enjeux politiques, économiques et sociaux, A l’échelle locale, réeionale et nationale
2/ Enjeux créatifs. Rôle des festivals dans l’histoire d’un artiste ou d’un genre (lancement, fabrication, consécration …)
3/ Enjeux de relations culturelles internationales. Lieux et acteurs de transferts culturels, migrations et circulations. Relations entre festivals. Contribution des festivals à une culture mondiale
Les communications seront présentées en français et en anglais.
Les propositions (2500 signes maximum), accompagnées d’une présentation de l’auteur, sont à envoyer avant le 10 décembre 2010 à histoire.festivals@gmail.com
Scientific Committee / Comité scientifique: Antoine de Baecque (Universitd Paris Ouest), Edward Berenson (New York University), Peter Burke (University of Cambridge), Myriam Chimènes (CNRS), AnaïsFléchet (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin), Eloi Ficquet (Centre Français des Études Éthiopiennes), Pascale Goetschel (Université Paris I), Vinzenz Hediger (Ruhr-Universität Bochum), Patricia Hidiroglou (Université Paris I), Denis Labarde (Ehess), Sylvie Lindeperg (Université Paris I), Emmanuelle Loyer (IEP de Paris), Caroline Moine (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin), Marcos Napolitano (Universidade de São Paulo), Emmanuel Négrier (Université de Montpellier), Pascal Ory (Université Paris I), Philippe Poirrier (Université de Bourgogne), Martine Segalen (Université Paris Ouest), Françoise Tétard (CNRS), Ludovic Tournès (Université Paris Ouest), Julie Verlaine (Université Paris I), Emmanuel Wallon (Univenité Paris Ouest), Jean-Claude Yon (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin).
Organization Committee / Comité d’organisation: Anaïs Fléchet, Pascale Goetschel, Patricia Hidiroglou, Caroline Moine, Pascal Ory, Françoise Tétard, Julie Verlaine, Jean-Claude Yon.
Date: Friday, October 8, 2010, 2 pm
Location: Sapphire Hall, Centrum Hotel
Having organized successful panels in Europe (NECS) and the USA (SCMS), the Film Festival Research Network (FFRN) is proud to announce the first gathering of film festival scholars in Asia. In collaboration with the Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF), the FFRN will host a seminar in Pusan (Busan), South Korea on October 8, 2010, the second day of the festival. The seminar will be organized as a workshop session, in which participants present their current research/work related to film festivals. The main objective of the FFRN meeting at PIFF is to offer a platform where film festival scholars can get to know each other and each other’s work. Entrance is free and everybody is welcome to joint the meeting.
“The Status of Researches and the Role of International Film Festivals”
Date: Saturday, October 9, 2010, 2 pm
Location: Joong-won Hall, Grand Hotel
In addition to the FFRN seminar, PIFF organizes a symposium on the Future of Film Festival Studies, co-hosted by the Busan National University on October 9th. Keynote speakers are Prof. Dr. Thomas Elsaesser, Prof. Dr. Soyoung Kim, and Dr. Marijke de Valck. Entrance is free and everybody is welcome to attend the symposium.
About PIFF
Over the last decade, the Pusan International Film Festival has grown fast to become the largest film festival in Asia. In 2010, PIFF will celebrate its 15th edition. The annual event transforms the port city of Pusan into a vibrant film community, showing up to 300 films from over 60 different countries. The parallel scheduled Asian Film Market was launched in 2006. It brings together the Pusan Promotion Plan (PPP), the acclaimed international coproduction/market, and the Busan International Film Commission and Industry Showcase (BIFCOM).
This week’s In Media Res special theme week focuses on Film Festivals, with contributions from FFRN members. Please visit the IMR site and enter the conversation in the comments section.
Here’s the line-up:
Monday September 13, 2010 – Virginia Wright Wexman (University of Illinois at Chicago) presents: The Cannes Film Festival and the Excesses of Auteurism
Tuesday September 14, 2010 – Skadi Lost (Universität Hamburg) presents: Queer Film and the Film Festival Circuit
Wednesday September 15, 2010 – Toby Lee (Harvard University) presents: (Not) Being There: Presence, Absence, Institutional Space, the Politics of Place
Thursday September 16, 2010 – Robert Moses Peaslee (Texas Tech University) presents: The Importance of [Seemingly Permeable] Boundaries at the Film Festival
Friday September 17, 2010 – Brendan Kredell (Northwestern University) presents: The Different Hats of Toronto’s Bell Lightbox
Theme Week Organized by Karen Petruska (Georgia State University)
To receive links for each day’s posts and see our latest calls for curators, please join the IMR Facebook group. You can also follow IMR on Twitter at @MC_IMR.
For more information, please contact In Media Res at inmediares.gsu@gmail.com or email the Coordinating Editor, Alisa Perren.
Workshop: Creativity Culture and Democracy in Art Festivals
November 25 -26, 2010; Bologna, Italy
Strongly linked to innovation, creativity is one of the great values or ideals of our contemporary age. Around creativity lifestyles, beliefs, stories and symbols coalesce. Be it thought of as embedded in a special class or diffused through social networks and circles, creativity could therefore be conceived of as the bulk of a new culture, the creativity culture.
Art festivals are among the major social and economic institutions of this culture, especially important and consequential as they connect different creative centres or actors at the same time as they select and present their products to various publics. Clearly, art festivals presume and produce issues of cultural and social representation as well as of inclusion.
Which publics are addressed by festivals? Which publics are excluded? And how do festivals choose among different creative actors and cultural producers? In other terms, how do art festivals precisely work as agents of this creative culture in the public sphere? Which functions do they fulfil? Which constraints do they pose? What impact do they have on the working and structuring of the public sphere? How may they work to promote inclusion? How do they impact on the organization of spaces, peoples, and on cultural diversity? And above all, how do festivals affect democracy as a discourse, a practice, and an institutional system? How can we explain their outcomes, successes or failures? These are the main questions the workshop will address, interfacing with the results of the EURO-FESTIVAL research consortium, to be presented and discussed in a dedicated session.
Speakers include scholars in the fields of creativity, democracy and the arts, from the disciplines of sociology, cultural and literary studies, anthropology and economics. But it is one of the main aims of the workshop to bring together academics with festival practitioners, professionals and policy makers, fostering their dialogue and confrontation.
Location, Program, registration, see the Euro-Festival webpage.
The Film Festival Research: Thematic, Annotated Bibliography has been updated. Because we now host the bibliography on our own space, we are more flexible with additions and updates. The new edition, now available here on the website, presents all previously listed as well as ca. 80 new entries in a new format. The linear (print) format has been replaced by a hyperlink structure, thus, breaking down the long bibliography into subpages according to categories and hopefully allowing for more search comfort and direct access. Entries that appeared only in one category so far in the print edition, can now be listed in multiple relevant categories (subpages) as space limitations are not applicable anymore in the same way. We hope to be able to do more justice to the entries this way.
Since the last edition (Jan. 2010), we have added and expanded categories of the bibliography. Under “1.1 c) Book Reviews” we now include reviews of film festival books. This way, we want to highlight that the work in film festivals research has been acknowledged and encourage engagement with raised criticism. With the new subcategory “5.5 Festivals as Organizations” we want to highlight work that deals with the organizational aspect of film festivals.
With regard to existing categories, we felt compelled to change our classification system for entries in category “6. Trans/National Cinemas”. The focus had been on the distribution, circulation and negotiation of an idea of national cinema on the festival circuit, including the impact global power structures play here. Following Dina Iordanova and Ruby Cheung’s discussion of imagined communities and the various ways in which film festivals are linked to diasporas (Iordanova/Cheung 2010), we want to broaden the idea of trans/national festivals to include those festivals that are not necessarily based in the regions we distinguish but have links to or circulate films from that region. Thus, we include here pieces on diasporic festivals.
Another change has been made for the already multifaceted category “8. Reception: Audiences, Communities and Cinephiles”. This category collected articles circling around several different aspects of reception: text-based reception studies, discussions on aspects of reception and cinephilia, reception environments and their link to communities, etc. Now this rubric will also include relevant contributions from the area of Tourism Management and Business Studies. Among the new entries we want to highlight two pieces that present quantitative audience research on festival audiences. These articles currently listed (Lee/Lee/Wicks 2004; Lee et al. 2008) are likely to be only the tip of a new iceberg.
We hope that you will find the bibliography useful. We welcome any recommendations, comments and additions. Please be in contact through info@filmfestivalresearch.org!
