Recent Events
June 24, 2020–June 24, 2020
In partnership with the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College and Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism, you can join a stellar group of panelists, leading figures in documentary practice and theory, for the launch of the special Afterimage dossier, “Co-creation in Documentary: Toward Multiscalar Granular Interventions Beyond Extraction.” All five writers of the dossier will present in a salon that focuses on co-creation practices, documentary, the pandemic, and protest. Hear their insights in an engaging live format meant to offer considered commentary and robust dialogue.
Cosponsored by the Park Center for Independent Media and Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24
4-5:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time
Register HERE: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_L8piUwo3R2etoMnHjRGqOg
Speakers:
Karen Van Meenen, Editor, Afterimage
Reece Auguiste, Associate Professor, University of Colorado
Helen De Michiel, media artist and writer, San Francisco Bay Area
Brenda Longfellow, Professor, York University, Canada
Dorit Naaman, Professor, Queen’s University, Canada
Patricia R. Zimmermann, Professor, Ithaca College
Moderated by Raza Ahmad Rumi, Director, Park Center for Independent Media, Ithaca College
Access the full dossier here, free access through the end of 2020: https://online.ucpress.edu/afterimage/article/47/1/34/107351/Co-creation-in-DocumentaryToward-Multiscalar
January 17, 2020–January 19, 2020
The University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC), the Mobile Innovation Network & Association (MINA) and Mobile Studies International (MSI) collaborate to initiate an event for the world of mobile storytellers: International Mobile Storytelling Congress (IMSC). Consisting of workshops, a conference, and a smartphone film festival, the congress aims to promote mobile storytelling for effective communication in different areas ranging from community and civic engagement to new forms of storytelling, creativity and developments towards story making (Schleser and Berry 2018) and/or story-living (Google New Lab 2017).
To be held on 17-19 January 2020 in Ningbo, China, IMSC focuses mobile, smartphone and pocket filmmaking, mobile innovation and mobile creativity. IMSC provides a forum for practitioners and scholars to showcase projects and discuss changes, challenges and chances of mobile storytelling.
This call is interested in storytelling and its broad application in the digital world. We see narrative and non-narrative methods as innovation sandboxes to illuminate community engagement and creative transformation(s). We aim for a combination of theoretical and creative practice research explorations responding to and interacting with the opportunities and potential of emerging media and screen production. Presentations and showcases can include work-in-progress, project presentations, academic papers and conceptual provocations or pose questions at the intersection of storytelling and screen production. We welcome proposals for workshops to run in conjunction with the International Mobile Storytelling Congress (IMSC). Paper & project abstracts will be double blind peer reviewed. We accept video presentations but require presenters to join a Q&A session via Adobe Connect.
Abstract for Research Papers, Workshops, Project Presentations and/or Showcase
Submission Deadline: 30 September 2019
Please submit your academic paper abstracts (in APA style, at least 350 words are expected and a short biographical note 250 words)
We will inform you of the selection results by 1 November 2019
Submit via
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=imsc2020
For further information regarding the Mobile, Smartphone and Pocket Film & Cinematic VR, Research Paper, Workshops, Project Presentations and/or Showcase, please contact Dr Max Schleser via mschleser@swin.edu.au | For further information regarding the academic papers, please contact Dr Xiaoge Xu via xiaoge.xu@nottingham.edu.cn
Making the Grade: Women Directing Documentary Past and Present
November 22, 2019–November 23, 2019
Directors UK (2018) reports an almost 10% decline in the number of women directing factual programming in recent years. What factors are driving this and how have individual women managed to forge careers in this sector? Using the career of Jill Craigie as a springboard, contemporary women film-makers from the South West and around the UK explore how far opportunities for women have changed since Craigie started as one of the first female documentary directors in 1944.
She made a series of films in the 1940s including The Way We Live (1946), a film which foregrounded women’s perspectives on the plan to rebuild Plymouth after the war. After her success in the war and post-war period, she had few opportunities to direct again, until, propelled by anger at the fate of the people of Dubrovnik during the war in Yugoslavia, she made Two Hours from London at the age of 84.
Further details and booking pages for events here. Run in partnership with the Arts Institute, Plymouth as part of the research project Jill Craigie: Film Pioneer, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Seminar: Ethics and Empathy
October 23, 2019–October 24, 2019
The Lincoln School of Film and Media (Lincoln, UK) is mounting an interdisciplinary seminar to discuss the ethical implications of the current claims around the suggested impacts on audiences’ empathetic reception of new media platforms. It is our intention to approach the current debate from a wide variety of angles. We’ll contextualise the example of immersive media by asking what do we already know of the empathic reaction to legacy visual media communications – film, broadcasting, photography – on, for example, migration, targeted social action, political satire and so on? We will be discussing the specific affordances that give rise to current claims around empathy and the ethical challenges those affordances occasion — and more generally, how the established agenda of concerns about media ethics might respond, if at all, to the emergence of immersive media.
We would very much welcome contributions to our deliberations. If you are interested in joining us, please be in touch with either:
Prof Brian Winston
Dr Carolina Bandenelli
July 07, 2019–July 11, 2019
NDESH #1 + CASA GIAP NOMADE will take place in Vuno, Albania. NDESH – meaning ‘confrontation’ in Albanian language – is a proposition for the formulation of an open and inclusive school of radical discourse in Albania. Through the encounter with other radical cultures, NDESH aims at fostering the formulation of a language for radical needs and thoughts in the country. NDESH nature is to delve into the unsafe spaces of failures and mistakes that can be made through learning processes considering the effort of translation as an act of resistance. As its first activity NDESH is very excited to welcome to Albania GIAP collective (Grupo de Investigaciòn en Arte y Política) from Chiapas, Mexíco to introduce their work and research on the Zapatista movement, offering a screening of Zapatistas radical films for the wider community of the village of Vuno. The workshop will be hosted by Shkolla Vuno, an initiative of a group of activists who are transforming every summer the school of the village in a welcoming hostel, where residents, travellers and passers-by, can be immersed in the wonderful nature that the place offers. We would like to welcome anyone interested to apply to the laboratory with GIAP in Albania between now and the 15th of June 2019. We ask for a small fee of 50 Euros for the participation to allow us to cover the costs. Click here for more information.
May 30, 2019–June 09, 2019
The sixth iteration of NHdocs: The New Haven Documentary Film Festival runs May 30th to June 9th. This year’s festival will honor filmmaker Michael Moore, who will be present June 7th, 8th, and 9th. The full schedule for the festival is available here. Special hotel discounts for festival attendees are available.
December 15, 2018–December 15, 2018
Documentary has often been lauded for its ability to educate, transform, provoke, and mobilise. High cultural value and social responsibilities have been attached to documentary film and television because of its supposed real-world impact. However, with a few notable exceptions, history has shown that this promise hasn’t been achieved as hoped and that past methods once effective, no longer serve us. In a post-truth vortex where faith in visible evidence has plummeted, audiences are increasingly siloed into social media echo chambers, and expert knowledge and the factual are increasingly undermined, how can documentary intervene as it might be expected to? In a day of provocations and polemics, scholars and practitioners will focus on failure in order to stir up urgent questions of documentary ideals, aims, processes and possibilities in the current context. Where does the past cease to serve us and what now?
August 02, 2018–August 05, 2018
July 13, 2018–July 15, 2018
UnionDocs, a Centre for Documentary Art located in Williamsburg Brooklyn, is holding a 3-day intensive workshop on the theory and practice of interactive storytelling. It might be a good opportunity for students and filmmakers interested in engaging with new media platforms in documentary production. According to the official description provided by UnionDocs: “This workshop, led by Marco Castro Cosio, will explore the creative possibilities and challenges of making documentaries for digital platforms. In presentations and workshops led by guest speakers, students will be exposed to a range of design strategies and production/distribution processes for making interactive, participatory and immersive narratives, including on emerging VR platforms like the Oculus Rift and HTC vive.”
June 16, 2018–June 22, 2018
The theme for The 64th Robert Flaherty Film Seminar is “Necessary Image” which speaks to films and videos that operate against the flow of popular taste and works towards building a better, more humane, more open world. Programmed by Kevin Jerome Everson & Greg de Cuir Jr. the seminar will question what makes necessary images and consequently a necessary cinema.
June 07, 2018–June 12, 2018
May 16, 2018–May 18, 2018
Blickle Cinema at the Belvedere 21 in Vienna is hosting a conference dedicated to “Strategies of the Documentary,” organized by the Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Vienna. This event provides a great opportunity to explore the intersections and entanglements between Greek film cultures and documentary practices/theory.
May 01, 2018–May 01, 2018
Docalogue – an online space for scholars, filmmakers, and documentary enthusiasts to engage in conversation about contemporary documentaries (urated by documentary scholars Jaimie Baron and Kristen Fuhs) – is featuring a discussion on the film Kedi (Ceyda Torun, 2016). To join in the discussion, you can read the short write-ups by Leshu Torchin and Yiman Wang on the event’s website, and take part in the monthly live-tweet.
April 26, 2018–May 06, 2018
April 13, 2018–April 21, 2018
