AMERICAN INDEPENDENT CINEMA: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
Liverpool, UK, 8 - 9 May 2009
An international conference co-organised by Claire Molloy (Liverpool
John Moores University) and Yannis Tzioumakis (University of Liverpool).
Keynote Speakers: Warren Buckland (Oxford Brookes University), Geoff
King (Brunel University), Peter Kramer (University of East Anglia),
Janet Staiger (University of Texas at Austin)
In recent years the field of American independent cinema has enjoyed
particular critical attention. The publication of a number of studies
on the subject and the development of courses that examine American
independent cinema as a separate object of study from mainstream
Hollywood cinema has demonstrated that American independent cinema is
a distinct discursive category and therefore deserves to be explored
in depth.
Despite the recent critical activity, however, there is still very
little actual research undertaken in the field. To this day, most of
the work on American independent cinema has focused on the period
ranging from the 1960s to contemporary times while the lion's share of
the critics' attention has gone to a relatively small number of
canonical independent filmmakers or to certain paradigmatic
independent films. Although the establishment of canons and paradigms
in independent cinema has been extremely useful, especially because it
identified the field as worthy of scholarly attention, it also
delimited the field substantially.
This conference wants to rethink American cinema through the concept
of 'independence' and the range of definitions that such a term
encompasses. As such, this conference hopes to attract research in the
field that extends far beyond conventional critical approaches that
tend to focus on key filmmakers, often starting from Cassavetes and
moving to more recent examples, and instead look at American cinema in
general with a view of questioning particular practices while also
offering a number of case studies from various historical moments.
Topics might include but are certainly not limited to:
• cinema at Poverty Row
• independent filmmaking within the "confines" of the studio system
• exploitation filmmaking
• ethnic filmmaking
• independent producers/distributors
• classics divisions vs contemporary independents
• the impact of technological change on independent filmmaking
• independent film financing, marketing, advertising and publicity
• institutionalising independence
Whilst we will consider papers that deal with any aspect of
independence, we particularly welcome papers that seek to revise
existing histories of American cinema, especially by re-opening cases
of films, filmmakers and companies that hitherto have been considered
as part of an increasingly loosely defined mainstream Hollywood. One
of the key aims of this conference is to chart the past, present and
future modes of film practice in the independent sector and to account
for the plurality of forms and guises in which independent filmmaking
has manifested in the United States. In this respect we hope the
conference will facilitate a much needed re-evaluation of American
cinema under the rubric of independence.
Please send proposals of up to 300 words to both [log in to unmask]
and [log in to unmask]
Deadline for submission of proposals is Friday 28 November 2008.
--
Iain Robert Smith
Institute of Film and Television
School of American and Canadian Studies
University of Nottingham
University Park
NG7 2RD
Head of Communications,
MeCCSA Post-Graduate Network
website: http://www.meccsa.org.uk/pgn/
Articles Editor,
Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies
website: http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk/
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