Research symposium: Poetics and Politics of Documentary Film - Building Bridges between the Theory and Practice of Documentary Film  
April 22 - 24, 2013 Aalto University, ARTS, ELO Helsinki Film School, Finland

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Aalto University ELO Helsinki Film School (Department of Film, Television and Scenography, School of Arts, Design and Architecture) will host a symposium on the relationship between theory and practice in documentary film. The objective of the symposium is to build bridges between the practice and theory of documentary film.  
The symposium seeks to find ways to “theorize within” film instead of “theorizing about” it. Theory can be understood as an active tool in catalyzing the new politics and poetics in the practice of documentary filmmaking.
 
AIMS 
The main objective of the symposium is to further promote dialogue between the new and emerging field of practice-based research and the traditional academic film studies on documentary film. The symposium will provide a forum for discussions on the possibilities and approaches related to practice-based research and the theorizing that stems from artistic work. The symposium will create important opportunities for networking for all interested in conceptual approaches in documentary film, whether practice or theory based. 

The international keynote speakers are leading scholars in the area of documentary film theory. The Vietnamese-American filmmaker and theorist Trinh T. Minh-ha and the British film scholar and filmmaker Brian Winston will both reflect on questions of the synergies and connections between theory and practice. 

CALL FOR PAPERS AND PRESENTATIONS 
We are pleased to announce a call for papers and presentations. We are open both for research and scholarly papers but also presentations of art projects accompanied by a paper describing a research element connected to the art project. The call is aimed especially at researchers working on art-based research projects but we are also open for papers from the wider range of film studies on documentary film. The time allotted for scholarly papers is 20 minutes + 10 minutes for discussion. Presentations including presentations of art projects (or part of them) can be 45 minutes + 15 minutes discussion.

Possible topics for papers and practice-based research presentations include, but are not limited to, the following categories: 

1.	The New Theory of Documentary Film: Theorizing within
 - Papers or presentations related to the dilemmas, methods and possibilities of practice-based research.  How can art projects be expressions of theory or part of the process of researching film? Does practice based theory and research need new strategies and styles of writing theory?   

2. The New Poetics of Documentary Film      
-  Papers or presentations on questions related to stylistic, aesthetic or formalistic questions in documentary film. This forum provides an arena for discussions on a variety of topics on the poetic in relation to the myriad subgenres, strategies and modes of tradition of documentary film or new strategies of expression in contemporary documentary film. 
    
3. The New Practices of Documentary Film
-     Papers or presentations on the questions of new and emerging areas and practices in the field of documentary film production, technology, distribution or other areas of film production as well as on new ways of understanding the role of documentary film practice and the use of it in wider contexts, including the political, social or other arenas. 

4. The New Politics of Documentary Film 
       -     Papers or presentations dealing with the rhetoric of the new political documentary film, the new ways of understanding the political in documentary film, and the different implications of the political in relation to the social, ethnic, gender or other questions.

Please send your proposals (1 page synopsis, max. 400 words, and short bio) to [log in to unmask] by January 31, 2013. You will be contacted by the conference organizers by February 28, 2013. 

The conference fee is 85 euros including lunches, coffees and one reception. The conference website will be available at the end of January 2013 with an updated program and information on registration, travelling and accommodation.

Conference committee: Professor Susanna Helke (Aalto ARTS), researcher Ilona Hongisto (Univ. of Turku), researcher Jouko Aaltonen (Aalto ARTS), coordinator Kirsi Rinne (Aalto ARTS).

For further inquiries, please contact
Susanna Helke, professor of documentary film, [log in to unmask]
Kirsi Rinne, coordinator, [log in to unmask]

http://elo.aalto.fi/en/

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