*CFP* "REFOCUS: THE FILMS OF THE DARDENNE BROTHERS", BOOK CHAPTER

The Dardenne brothers (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne) have been  recognised as important filmmakers in European cinema, claiming the Palme d’or at Cannes on more than one occasion. The filmmakers’ names have become shorthand for film production in Belgium (alongside Chantal Akerman and Jaco Van Dormael). They are also perceived as key European auteurs, creating and producing films that comment on relevant issues and debate in contemporary (Western) Europe and its socio-political context(s).

Some themes that would benefit from further scholarly attention include:

• Religion/ Christianity in the Dardenne brothers’ films.
• The ethics of the Dardenne brothers’ films
• The Dardenne brothers as European auteurs
• Collaborative authorship and the Dardenne’s filmmaking team (e.g. Marie-Hélène Dozo)
• The Dardenne brothers’ films and the modes of production, distribution and exhibition
• The representation of childhood in Walloon social realism
• Social Engagements/ Social Justice on screen

*CFP* "FROM CELLULOID TO STREAMING: CONSERVATION AND CIRCULATION OF SMALL CINEMAS", 12TH EDITION OF THE SMALL CINEMAS CONFERENCE

12th edition of the Small Cinemas Conference

From Celluloid to Streaming: Conservation and Circulation of Small Cinemas

October 28th-29th, 2021

Santiago de Compostela, Spain

 

The flow of globalization has renewed the debate on center-periphery inequalities. The irruption of new technologies for distributing, consuming and archiving cinema pose a challenge to small cinemas already fighting for a place in traditional screening venues and events. Small cinema products are now part of the Video on Demand gigantic catalogues. The so-called algorithm culture perpetuates the unbalance between big and small industries.

 

In this conference, we propose to analyze if the algorithm could be a death sentence for small cinemas or could instead bring new opportunities. Should small cinemas look for visibility by using tags related to popular genres or use smallness or periphery as tags themselves are relevant questions for the survival of small productions.

*CFP* "THE SHIFTING ECOLOGIES OF PHOTOCHEMICAL FILM IN THE DIGITAL ERA", ONLINE 2021 CONFERENCE BY THE ABERSTWYTH UNIVERSITY

The Shifting Ecologies of Photochemical Film in the Digital Era

7th-11th June 2021

Online

 

In today’s high-tech media landscape, where cycles of consumption and disposal and upgrades and updates are commonplace, the subject of obsolescence takes on a heightened significance. Many technological changes have occurred during the history of cinema, but none have had such a transformative effect on the industry as the transition from analogue (or photochemical) film to digital. Since the early 2000s, the medium of film has moved from a dominant to a marginal position as digital technology has rendered photochemical and mechanical technology obsolete on a commercial scale. Despite this, artists are finding new ways to work with film, forging alternative communities, pursuing artisanal methods, repurposing abandoned equipment, reinventing primitive techniques and exploring new hybrid technologies.

*CFP* “SURFACES, BOUNDARIES, FORMATS OF CONTEMPORARY IMAGES”, SPECIAL ISSUE IMAGO - STUDI DI CINEMA E MEDIA

Imago - Studi di cinema e media, n. 20/2019. Contemporary visual culture investigates the materiality of images and their status as objects, as well as their structure, their boundaries, and their points of contact with other experiences and phenomena. The /Imago 20/ dossier aims to address the multifarious ways images permeate the current mediascape (Pinotti-Somaini). The ever-increasing changeability that connotes the surfaces of digital images demands a thorough interrogation of pixel culture, shedding light upon the mobility, ductility, and reversibility of contemporary devices (Casetti). At the same time, a stronger awareness seems to be emerging about the issue of the aspect ratio, whose fluidity plays a primary role in both social and authorial practices (Doane).

Such an awareness has given the term “format” renewed relevance. On the one hand, in connection to cinema, it concerns the geometric configuration of images, i.e. the shape through which they frame the world. Recent mainstream cinema seems to be playing with horizontal, vertical and square frames, in order to produce complex creative and theoretical discourses; and the development of such a trend might be connected to the new frames implemented by smartphones and mobile devices.