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June 2014, Week 2

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Please scroll down for calls for papers on The Golden Age(s) of Documentaries and  Indie Films and Golden Ages: Looking for Gold Through an Independent Lens


CALL FOR PAPERS
CFP: The Golden Age(s) of Documentaries
An area of multiple panels for the 2014 Film & History Conference:
Golden Ages: Styles and Personalities, Genres and Histories
October 29-November 2, 2014
The Madison Concourse Hotel and Governor’s Club
Madison, WI (USA)
DEADLINE for abstracts: July 1, 2014
AREA: The Golden Age of Documentaries

One constant throughout the history of documentary has been the quest for, or a claim to, a higher truth or authenticity.  Yet, ever since John Grierson coined the term “documentary” in 1926, there has been no easy consensus as to what defines the genre.  Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922) is often cited as the “first” documentary, leading many to interpret that the genre’s sine qua non is a pronounced ethnographic or cultural thrust. 

Over time, the quest for authenticity has validated the use of numerous techniques, such as dispensing with scripts, or directorial subterfuge to provoke the subject into revealing his or her true self.  These techniques, of course, are at the core of the cinema direct and cinema verité movements of the 1950s and ‘60s—an era that is a prime candidate for the Golden Age of Documentary. 

Leading into the 21st century, documentaries have been increasingly characterized by hybridity and an infusion of fictive narrative techniques. How do these developments affect our understanding of documentary and “the real”?  How have our understandings of documentary “truth” evolved over time? 

This area invites 20-minute papers examining a variety of questions, themes, styles, and filmmakers associated with documentary film, from the Lumière Brothers factory film (1895) through breakout art house features such as Muscle Shoals (2013), nature blockbusters such as Wonders of the Arctic 3D (2014), and documentary shorts and online films, such as Mr. Christmas (2013)
.  
Possible panel topics include, but are not limited to:

•	The nature of cinematic truth(s) in documentary filmmaking (close readings, comparative studies, truth-making strategies in a range of historical periods
•	The impact of technological advances on communicating authenticity
•	The television news documentary:  Edward R. Murrow’s and Fred Friendly’s See it Now and CBS Reports, NBC’s White Paper, and ABC’s Close-Up, and the National Film Board of Canada’s The Candid Eye
•	The work of such filmmakers as Dziga Vertov (and Kino-Pravda), Robert Flaherty, Wolf Koening, Jean Rouch, Albert and David Maysles, Robert Drew and Richard Leacock, and D.A. Pennebaker
•	The rise of the internet documentary

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. For updates and registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website (www.filmandhistory.org).

Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by 1 July 2014, to the area chair:

Tony Osborne
Gonzaga University
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***


CALL FOR PAPERS
CFP: Indie Films and Golden Ages: Looking for Gold Through an Independent Lens
An area of multiple panels for the 2014 Film & History Conference:
Golden Ages: Styles and Personalities, Genres and Histories
October 29-November 2, 2014
The Madison Concourse Hotel and Governor’s Club
Madison, WI (USA)
DEADLINE for abstracts: July 1, 2014

AREA: Indie Films and Golden Ages: Looking at Gold Through an Independent Lens

Independent films—films produced outside of a nation’s dominant film industry and its modes of production—both resist and rely on the official declaration of consensual cultural significance that a “Golden Age” suggests. Yet, even our understanding of their “independence” is a cultural construct that film critics, historians, and filmmakers use to define the patterns and particularities of their content and form. 

How do we then understand the ways in which independent films relate to the many “golden ages” of the mainstream film industry?  In what ways do these films simultaneously call into question and reinforce the notion of a “golden age”?  How do we define a “golden age” (or “ages”) for these independent films?

We invite papers that explore the complex categorical interdependency between independent films and their “golden ages” and/or those of their cinematic adversaries. Topics and fields in this area include but are not limited to:


•	The ‘90s “Indie Film” movement and the impact of its filmmakers and film making on the industry.
•	The growth and proliferation of film festivals designed to feature independent films and that contributed to their consolidation or appropriation as a “golden age” or movement, e.g., The New York Film Festival, the Sundance Film Festival, Slamdance, etc.
•	“New Hollywood” cinema and the complex negotiations between the auteur and the studio system (e.g., Kubrick and Warner Brothers/MGM, Coppola and Paramount Pictures, the bolder endeavors of United Artists)
•	The films and impact of independent production companies in the “New Hollywood” era, such as Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider’s BBS Productions and Francis Ford Coppola’s American Zoetrope.
•	Significant movements in film history that were conceived as independent from the dominant systems of film production, distribution, and/or style, such as French Poetic Realism, Italian Neo-Realism, the French and German New Waves, Latin America’s Third Cinema, etc.
•	Manifestoes and movements conceived as departures or resistances to the economics and ideologies of dominant film making, e.g., Zavattini’s manifesto of Italian Neo-Realism, “Some Ideas on the Cinema,” Germany’s Oberhausen Manifesto, Von Trier and Vinterberg’s “Dogme ’95 Manifesto” and “Vow of Chastity,” Solanas and Getino’s “Towards a Third Cinema,” etc. 
•	The creative and economic impact and manifestations of the digital revolution in filmmaking (digital cameras, i-devices, and editing software) and distribution (youtube, vimeo) and its relation to the studio system. 

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. For updates and registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website (www.filmandhistory.org).

Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by 1 July 2014, to the area chair:

Gregory Wolmart
Drexel University
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