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*Offscreen Film Festival Presents:*



*SYMPOSIUM: 1980’s REAGANITE CINEMA*





Each year Offscreen Film Festival focuses on a specific cult film subgenre.
This year’s thematic selection highlights the Cannon film studio. Next to
the film program, Offscreen organises a symposium on ‘Reaganite cinema’ and
the role of the body, violence and action heros in 1980s cinema.



The *Cannon film* studio, run by Israelian cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram
Globus, is synonymous with the eighties – a time of superficial excess and
bravado, rampant consumerism and neoliberalism. President Ronald Reagan
like none other symbolises the political zeitgeist and Cannon Films almost
seems to be the official propaganda service of the White House, with All
American Heroes like Chuck Norris, Charles Bronson and Sylvester Stallone
defending the Free World from the communist “Evil Empire”. Ninjas,
bodybuilders and bazookas take over the cinema screens, and JCVD gets
moulded into a Hollywood film star.



By way of a *symposium* at Cinema Nova, we want to place the output of
Cannon Films in the broader cultural and historical context of American
film production during the presidency of Ronald Reagan (“*Reaganite Cinema*”)
where action heros rescue the world and the cult of the body reigns
supreme.





*Speakers*



Steve Jones (Northumbria University) - *Hard body, cold heart: The body in
80s cinema *



Russ Hunter (Northumbria University) -*Chuck Norris doesn’t call the wrong
number, you answer the wrong phone: The 80s action star and Reaganism*



Jonathan Mack (Northumbria University) - *Weapons of Mass Nostalgia:
Action, Spectacle and the American Hero in Reaganite Cinema*



Dr. Sarah Ralph (University of East Anglia) - *Re-masculating the hero? The
curious case of the 80s female action star*



Laurent Vanclaire (Université Libre de Bruxelles) - *Wake me up, I'm
scared: horror movies in the 80s*





*Practical: *



*Saturday 14 March 13:00 – 17:00*

*Cinema Nova, rue Arenberg 3, 1000 Brussels *

*Entrance is free, please register at [log in to unmask]
<[log in to unmask]>*

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