[Filmfestivalresearch] Symposium CfP: Film Festivals - Borders, Identities, Solidarities (UNIVE, Nov. 4-6, 2024)

[Dunja JELENKOVIC]

*CALL FOR PAPERS*



*Symposium*

*Film Festivals: Borders, Identities, Solidarities*

*Ca’ Foscari **University **of Venice*

*November 4–6, 2024*





This symposium aims to explore how the issues of *borders*, *identities* and
 *solidarities* have been tackled by and through *film festivals*. As a
repetitive practice happening in regular intervals and at the same place, film
festivals operate as ‘places of memory’ of a particular kind (Nora, 1984
[1997]
<https://www.gallimard.fr/Catalogue/GALLIMARD/Quarto/Les-Lieux-de-memoire>).
As such, they provide an institutional framework for the *cultural
memories *they preserve and produce through their programmes. By the
default of cultural memory creation (Assmann, 1995
<https://marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/classes/201/articles/95AssmannCollMemNGC.pdf>),
their influence becomes long-term and wide encompassing, moving far beyond
from their actual time and place. In addition, thanks to the engagement of
diverse festival actors (journalists, critics, industry representatives,
politicians, etc.) the narratives that they create reach diverse categories
of society, not limited to those present at the screening. The influence
created in such a way becomes especially important in the times of *political
and military conflicts *and* social turbulences*, when not only various kinds
of liberties, but also people’s lives, can be threatened. With this in
mind, this symposium aims to bring together scholars working on *diverse
aspects of film festival studies* to discuss interrelations between film
festivals and the questions of borders, identities and solidarities. In the
current context of political and social upheavals, and social movements for
civil rights, the symposium will explore the capacity of film festivals to
operate not simply as spaces for cinematic representation related to
borders and identities, but how they have (or may become) vehicles for
forging solidarities, past, present and future.



We welcome submissions in the following (non-exhaustive) *topic areas*:



-       Film festivals and political propaganda

-       Film festivals as places for expression of solidarity

-       Film festivals, cultural memory and national identity

-       Film festivals and gender identity

-       Definitions of film festivals’ identity

-       Borderland film festivals

-       Borders and boundaries in film festival programmes



Submissions may be individual or for panels of three papers. We are
inviting proposals from participants from diverse ranges of career levels,
from doctoral students to established scholars.



Please *submit* your proposals – 250-word abstracts for 20-minute
presentations – to *cba.trieste.symposium at gmail.com
<cba.trieste.symposium at gmail.com> by July 5, 2024*. Notifications of
acceptance will be sent by August 15, 2024.



The symposium is organized by Dr Dunja Jelenkovic and Prof. Marco Dalla
Gassa in the framework of the H2020 MSCA project *CBA TRIESTE
<https://pric.unive.it/projects/cbatrieste/home>* (*The Cinematic Battle
for the Adriatic: Films, Frontiers, and the Trieste Crisis*) which has
received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and
innovation programme, under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No.
101020692 (MSCA-IF-EF).



For any *inquiries*, please contact *dunja.jelenkovic at unive.it
<dunja.jelenkovic at unive.it>* (please put “CBA TRIESTE Symposium“ as the
email subject).


Dr Dunja Jelenkovic
Researcher / Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow
Dept. of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage
Ca' Foscari University of Venice
CBA TRIESTE <https://pric.unive.it/projects/cbatrieste/home> project | Orcid
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4626-1244> page
www.dunjajelenkovic.com