Keynote speaker: Mireille Rosello

Thursday, 27 September 2012 - Saturday, 29 September 2012

Location: Arts Picturehouse Cinema and Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College, Cambridge

For more info, see: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/2057

This conference seeks to explore the representation and conceptualization of interior space in cinema, in the context of the transnational relations and identities that inform both spaces and the films that project them. The conference will examine the idea that the intimate architectures of homes and dwelling places, whether of a transitory or more rooted nature, both shape and are shaped by the identities of those that inhabit them.

Presenting his films at the conference will be the highly-acclaimed Portuguese director Pedro Costa, who, in films such as In Vanda's Room (2000), takes us into dark, squalid rooms of immigrants in the slums of Lisbon. The austere beauty of his films navigates between intimacy and distance. A major concern of the conference will be the co-extensiveness - or otherwise - of interior scenes and psychic interiority.

However, the interior will be seen not as a purely discrete or withdrawn 'personal' domain, but as informed and sometimes disrupted by the political experience of space at large. In crossing intimate thresholds, what do films reveal about those wider, geopolitical boundaries and transnational forces that inevitably come to bear upon our private existences?

Thu, 27 September (time tbc, Cambridge Arts Picturehouse): In Vanda's Room (Pedro Costa), followed by Q&A with Pedro Costa

Fri, 28 September Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College
9.00 - 9.30am

Registration

9.30 - 10.45am

'The Silent Multilingualism of Spaces: Translating Interiors in Films' - Mireille Rosello

Chair: Emma Wilson

10.45 - 11.15am

Break

11.15am - 12.45pm

Ruins and Shadows (20 min papers)

'The Organisation of Space in In Vanda's Room' - Rosa Barotsi 'Implaced in Shadows: Social Cosmology of the Yokoyama Family in Still Walking (2008)' - Simone Chung Chair: Geoffrey Kantaris

12.45 - 2.00pm

Lunch
2.00 - 3.30pm

Panel title TBC (25-30 min papers)

'The Woman in the Plastic Mackintosh: Making Interiors Manifest' - David Trotter
'Textile Walls: Shaping transnational spaces in early Soviet Cinema' - Emma Widdis Chair: Steven Connor

3.30 - 4.00pm

Break

4.00 - 5.30pm

Close reading session (10-minute presentations on clips)

Viva l'Aldgérie (Nadir Moknèche, 2004) - Maria Flood
Import/Export (Ulrich Seidl, 2007) - Stephan Hilpert
Welcome (Philippe Lioret, 2009) - Isabelle McNeill
Chair: TBC
Sat, 29 September
Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College
9.15 - 10.45am

Queer interiors (25-30 min papers)

'A Closet with a View: Julio Medem's Habitación en Roma (Room in Rome: 2010)' - Chris Perriam 'Ex-centric Interiority and Transnational Europe as Neutral Image: WildSide, Barthes and Rancière' - Sudeep Dasgupta Chair: Andrew Webber

10.45 - 11.00am

Break

11.00am - 12.00pm

Close reading session (10-minute presentations on clips)

The Passenger (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1975) - Robert Gordon
Last Year in Marienbad (Alain Resnais, 1961) - Hannah Mowat
Chair: Axel Bangert

12.00 - 1.00pm

Round Table closing session: Thomas Elsaesser, Mireille Rosello, Emma Wilson, Andrew Webber, +TBC

Please note that those wishing to attend the screening of In Vanda's Room on Thursday 27th September should purchase tickets directly from the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse. Booking in advance is recommended.