[Filmfestivalresearch] Your Support in the Formation of the Film and Media Festival Interest Group (SCMS)

[ger zielinski, ph.d.]

Dear Festival Researchers,

If you agree to the proposal below on the formation of a SCMS scholarly 
interest group (SIG) dedicated to film and media festivals AND are a 
member of SCMS, please send me an email (off-list) so that I may add 
your name to the proposal for submission to the SCMS Board of Directors 
by Monday, August 2. Your support would be greatly appreciated!

For information on the Scholarly Interest Groups (and the Caucuses), see:
http://www.cmstudies.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21&Itemid=52

Over the past few years a number of us has been considering organizing 
such a group at SCMS, and the time seems perfect to do so. The proposal 
is provisional and may be altered in due process at the first or 
subsequent meetings or through online referenda, as required, by its 
members. This proposal is an adaptation of the one submitted for the 
Experimental Film SIG from a few years ago, with permission and 
encouragement.

To submit it, we will need to provide a list of names of more than 15 
members (who must also be members of SCMS!).

The plan is to submit this in early August, then it will placed on the 
agenda of the board of directors for consideration at their meeting in 
October. If successful, we will have our first formal meeting as a SIG 
in March in New Orleans.

Of course, critical suggestions and comments are also welcome at this stage.

Please send your messages to me off-list by this Monday!

cheers,
ger

SOCIETY FOR CINEMA AND MEDIA STUDIES
Proposal for the Formation of a Scholarly Interest Group

FILM AND MEDIA FESTIVAL INTEREST GROUP

Co-Chairs: To be determined at the first meeting at SCMS New Orleans in 
March 2011.

I. Mission Statement

With the first known film festival in 1898 Monaco, film festivals have 
served an important role in film culture nearly from the very origin of 
cinema itself. In recent years the area of film festival studies has 
been rapidly growing, with academic attention given to festivals and 
their relation to cinephilia, canon formation, distribution, identity, 
social movements, and so on. Just as new publications in the area have 
been making their way into scholarly journals and conferences, new 
courses on exhibition and festivals are beginning to be offered at 
universities around the world.

While members of the international Film Festival Research Network (FFRN, 
with 162 members to its listserv) have been successful in organizing 
panels and workshops dedicated to film festival research, there is no 
formal presence in SCMS, even though many members of FFRN are also 
members of SCMS. FFRN has formed a SIG, the Film Festival Research Work 
Group (approximately 36 participants, with many more attending panels 
and workshops), within the European Network for Cinema and Media Studies 
(NECS www.necs-initiative.org ), which has been instrumental in 
organizing panels and workshops at the annual NECS conferences. While 
NECS is appropriate for scholars based in Europe, we would like to 
extend this highly productive initiative to SCMS which would have a much 
greater international scope. Formal recognition at SCMS as a SIG would 
provide members, and those interested in becoming members, the 
opportunity to convene to talk, debate issues of methodology and 
theoretical frameworks, and develop projects together in a more 
organized manner.

The Scholarly Interest Group that we envision would provide a place 
where the internationally and institutionally diverse scholars 
interested in film and media festivals could meet one another, share 
ideas and resources, and collaborate. As an emerging area of study, it 
is important for our members to find the time and place to meet together 
conveniently to discuss the state of not only research but also the 
challenge of publishing. We believe that the SCMS conference is the 
ideal arena through which to bring scholars together to share, 
cooperate, and educate both the larger field and ourselves. We envision 
the Film and Media Festival Interest Group as a crucial node that would 
facilitate discussion, enable the sharing of resources, and allow us to 
reach out to other scholars and students interested in working in this 
growing area.

The mission of the group consists of two main objectives:

1) To provide a forum in which scholars of film festivals can discuss 
their work, organize panels and workshops for each year's conference, 
and work together to accomplish the goals and objectives of the group;

2) To schedule a yearly meeting at the SCMS conference where we can 
convene to discuss and formulate specific programs and plans relevant to 
our focus on film festivals.

Goals and Objectives

1) To work with the Executive Committee and each year's Conference 
Program Committee as a source of expertise concerning the emerging area 
of film festival studies;

2) To support Cinema Journal and other publications and to encourage 
their inclusion of scholarship concerning film and/or other types of 
media festivals;

3) To work with other SCMS groups whose themes may occasionally 
intersect with the study of film and/or other types of media festivals;

4) To take on special projects, such as specially designated panels, 
joint conferences, plenary participation, or workshops;

5) To build on the work that several of our members, under the 
supervision of Dr. Marijke de Valck and Skadi Loist, have already done, 
e.g. the compilation of the online bibliography of publications on film 
festivals
( http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/Medien/berichte/arbeiten/0091_08.html ). We 
wish to create a scholarly website dedicated to a wide range of aspects 
relevant to scholars in the area, which would include the existing 
online bibliography. Initial steps have been taken towards this goal 
with www.filmfestivalresearch.org but significant parts of the site 
remain to be built.

II. List of Members

Liz Czach
Marijke de Valck
Dorota Ostrowska
Skadi Loist
Ger Zielinski
Others to be added!

III. Bylaws

1) The members of the Film and Media Festival Interest Group shall be 
members in good standing of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies.

2) Two members from the Group shall serve as Co-Chairs for staggered 
terms of three years each. The Co-Chairs shall be elected at the Group’s 
first meeting in March of 2011.

3) The Co-Chairs shall submit a request every year to the Program 
Committee of the SCMS conference for a time and space to meet, as well 
as funding to support relevant programming (in response to the annual 
call made by the Committee to SIGs).

4) At all meetings of the Group, ten members shall constitute a quorum 
for transaction of business. The vote of the majority of members present 
at a meeting at which a quorum is present constitutes the action of the 
Group.

5) When issues are submitted to the members of the Group for vote via 
e-mail, the members shall have seven business days to respond. The 
subject line of the e-mail shall contain the word “vote” to alert the 
members to act.

6) Action on behalf of the Group may be taken without a meeting if a 
majority of the members of the Group provide consent by writing or by 
e-mail. The written consents shall be filed with the minutes of the next 
meeting.


-- 
Ger Zielinski, PhD
LTA Assistant Professor of Media

Department of Cultural Studies
Trent University
Scott House, Room 202
300 London Street
Peterborough, ON K9H 7P4 Canada

T: +1.705.748.1771 (department)
F: +1.705.748.1826
http://www.trentu.ca/culturalstudies/faculty_zielinski.php