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.
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