[Filmfestivalresearch] SCMS Seattle - Festival Research

[Antoine Damiens]

Dear friends and colleagues,

Please find enclosed some important information regarding festival research at the annual conference of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies 2019 in Seattle. We are looking forward to seeing you all!

 1. Travel Award ($200)

This year the Film & Media Festivals Scholarly Interest Group will be providing, for the first time, a $200 travel grant to help defray the costs for graduate students, contingent faculty, and other un/deremployed SIG members traveling to SCMS. 

If you would like to be considered for the grant, please send the following information to the SIG co-chairs and graduate student representative Beth Tsai (peijenbethtsai at gmail.com <mailto:peijenbethtsai at gmail.com>), Antoine Damiens (antoine.damiens at concordia.ca <mailto:antoine.damiens at concordia.ca>), and Jon Petrychyn (jpetrychyn at gmail.com <mailto:jpetrychyn at gmail.com>) by February 6th: 
 -Presentation title 
 -Current institutional affiliation (if applicable) or current job title, including city and country of location
 -Budget outlining cost and mode of travel (i.e. air, train, car, etc.) to SCMS from your home city. In your   budget also include any other travel funding you have obtained or expect to obtain from other sources, including your home institution, other SCMS funds, and/or other external funders.

The grant will be awarded based on traveling distance and financial need. In the event that more than one person demonstrate the same or similar levels of financial need and the same or similar traveling distance, the grant will be awarded via lottery.

Applicants must be registered members of the SIG who will be presenting at the annual conference.
Recipients of the travel grant will be reimbursed via cheque issued by SCMS for the amount of the grant at the conference. Recipients of the travel grant will be ineligible for the travel grant for the next three years. SIG co-chairs and the graduate student representative are ineligible for the travel grant for the duration of their term.

 2. SIG meeting and social hour

The Film and Media Festivals SIG general meeting is currently scheduled on Friday 15th, at 9:00AM (meeting place TBA). 

This year, we will elect a new co-chair and/or graduate representative. These positions are low maintenance and are a great opportunity to meet new colleagues. Consider nominating yourself!

We are currently looking into reserving a bar for our social hour (likely on Thursday 14th or Friday 15th). We will provide you with more information before the conference. If you have any suggestion for a place, let us know!

 3. Film festival panels at SCMS

Please find below a provisional list of the festival-related panels at SCMS 2019. This list is based on the first draft of the conference schedule. Panels and papers might be rescheduled by SCMS.

March 13th (Wed.)
 4PM. Panel C16 SESQUI to Netflix: How Digital Engagement Constructs and Disrupts National Screen Culture. Participants: • Tess Van Hemert, Queensland University of Technology, and Liz Ellison, Queensland University of Technology, “Mapping local and regional film festivals: digital engagement, audiences and sustainability in Queensland, Australia” • Claudia Sicondolfo, York University, “Touring SESQUI: 360-Degrees of Canadian Nationhood”, • Kirsten Stevens, University of Melbourne, and Diane Burgess, University of British Columbia, “Reframing National Screen Culture in the Age of Netflix: A Comparative Analysis of Canada and Australia”

March 15th (Fri.)
  1PM. Panel L13 The Conventions of Conventions: A Cross-Media Exploration of Media Industry Conventions, Festivals, and Intermediaries. Participants:  • Erin Hanna, University of Oregon, “Origin Stories: The San Diego Comic-Con and the Future of All Media” • Benjamin Woo, Carleton University, “Six Degrees of Jason Momoa: The Field of Con Events as Social Network” • Aleah Kiley, University of California, Santa Barbara, “Diverting Diversity: The of Politics of Cultural Difference at Game Festivals” • Felan Parker, University of Toronto, “We Built a Site: Symposium as Method for Studying Cultural Intermediaries”

  1PM, Workshop L14: Film Festival Pedagogy: Focus on Latin American Film Festivals/Film Circulation in the Global Film Festival Circuit. Participants: • Tamara Falicov, University of Kansas • Maria Paz Peirano, University of Chile • Christina Venegas, University of California, Santa Barbara • Maria Lourdes Cortes, University of Costa Rica • Hebe Tabachnik, Seattle International Film Festival

  5PM. Panel M13 Curating Film Cultures: Film Festivals and the History of Film/Media Studies. Participants: • Antoine Damiens, Independent Scholar, “Curating gay and lesbian film studies: 1970s committed scholars/critics as festival organizers” • Clarissa Jacob, Royal Holloway, University of London, “‘Subjectivity in pursuit of greater objectivity’: Barbara Martineau’s writing on feminist film festivals of the 1970s” • Aida Vallejo, University of the Basque Country, “Rethinking the History of Documentary at film festivals” • Tilottama Karlekar, Colorado College, “Tracing Archives of ‘Resistance’: Alternative Film Festival Histories in Postcolonial India” 

March 16th (Sat.)
  9:45AM. Panel. N13 International Film Festivals and the Production of World Cinema. Participants: • David Richler, Carleton University, “Branding World Cinema: Movement, Montage, and the Mediating Function of Film Festival Logos” • Eren Odabasi, Western Washington University, “Festival Selections and Commercial Performance of Films from the Global South” • Humberto Saldanha, University College Cork, “Producing the Other in Film Festivals: Cosmopolitanism, Funding and the Making of Authenticity in Brazilian Cinema” • Jasper Vanhaelemeesch, University of Antwerp, “Focalising Film Festivals: Contemporary film

  3:45PM. Panel Q20 FESPACO at 50 - Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Africa’s Most Important Film Festival and Cultural Event  Participants: • Olivier Tchouaffe, Southwestern University, “On African Cinema, Representation, Social Movement and State Power” • Joseph Pomp, Harvard University, “Discourses of Auteurism and the Place of the Actor at Africa's Most Prestigious Film Festival” • Jean-Marie Teno, Independent Scholar, “The Long and Winding Road towards the ‘Real’ in Africa”• Aboubakar Sanogo, Carleton University, “The Film Festival as Governmentality: FESPACO and the Government of African Cinema”

 4. Film festival papers in non-festival panels

C14 Alternative Archives: Politics and Pedagogy. •Andrew Robbins, University of Oregon, “The Politics and Limitations of Archiving Queerness: Valencia and The San Francisco Transgender Film Festival”

D4 Subversive Media Embodiments  •Aniruddha Maitra, Colgate University, “Rethinking Queer Cinematic ‘Wordling’ and Aesthetic Dissidence: Notes on the KASHISH Festival and Karishma Dube's Devi”

K12 How Media Confronts Politics • Konstantinos Tzouflas, University of Zurich, “Film festivals and New Waves from countries in crisis: the New Argentine Cinema and the Greek New Wave”

R13 Ecological Approaches to Media  • Marcelina Piotrowski, University of British Columbia, "Topologies of Life and Death: Eco-Film Festivals in Dark Times"

U5 Global China: Production and Distribution  • Heshen Xie, University of Nottingham, “Hegemony in Programming: The Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in the Global Festival Circuit” 

Thank you so much. We look forward to seeing you all in Seattle.

Antoine Damiens (outgoing co-chair)
Beth Tsai (co-chair)
Jon Petrychyn (graduate representative)