The Film Scene: Cinema, the Arts, and Social Change A Symposium sponsored by the Film Culture Project of the Department of Comparative Literature, the Department of Music, and the Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong The Film Scene: Cinema, the Arts, and Social Change will be held at the University of Hong Kong, April 21-22, 2006 (following the Hong Kong International Film Festival, April 4-19). This interdisciplinary, two-day symposium will bring together scholars from Hong Kong and abroad to explore the connections between the cinema and the other arts within the context of social change. Since its birth, the cinema has been at the crossroads of the connections among the plastic and performing arts, and, today, film continues to question the borders separating various aesthetic practices and media. Within this complex matrix, the film “scene” emerges as a meeting ground of artists working in various forms on the cutting edge of aesthetic exploration and social change. Possible topics/panels: • Defining the “scene”: Film as artistic practice and public event • Film and other art forms (music, dance, theatre, photography, fine arts, digital arts, literature, etc.) • Film Music and the Music Scene (connections to classical music, Canto-pop, Chinese opera, ethnomusicology, etc.) • Gender and the film scene: Women’s issues, sexuality, masculinity, queer cinema, etc. • Film and arts activism: Cinema and the political scene • Film and the public sphere: modernity, post-modernity, and the motion picture • The Hong Kong “scene”: Film and the arts in Hong Kong • Defining an Asian “scene”: The global reach of Asian cinema • Globalization and the Indie Scene: Independent cinema and transnational film culture • The Cyber-Scene: Film and digital culture • Between Art and Document: Interconnections between video art and documentary practices • Being Seen: Stardom, images, and commodities • History Seen: Colonialism, post-colonialism, and the cinema • The Money Seen: Film and the circulation of capital • The Scene as Site: Space, place, and the film scene • The Spiritual Dimension: Traditional beliefs and contemporary cinema • Seen, Scene, and Obscene: Sexuality and the cinema Professor Ackbar Abbas, author of Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance (Minnesota, 1997), of the Department of Comparative Literature, will deliver the keynote address on April 21. Professor Kam Louie, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and author of Theorising Chinese Masculinity: Society and Gender in China (Cambridge, 2002), will offer opening remarks. We invite all scholars and students working in any academic discipline to play a part in the symposium. If you would like to participate, please send a brief abstract of your presentation (under 250 words) or a brief outline of what you would like to contribute (e.g., chair a panel, organize a workshop, prepare a poster session, etc.) to Dr. Gina Marchetti, Comparative Literature, at [log in to unmask] by February 15, 2006. We will not be able to provide transportation, accommodations, or honoraria. However, there is no registration fee for the symposium, and lunch will be provided on April 22. If you have any further questions, please contact Gina Marchetti, [log in to unmask] or any of the other members of the organizing committee, including Esther Cheung, [log in to unmask], Chan Hing-yan, [log in to unmask], Giorgio Biancorosso, [log in to unmask], Mirana Sze-to, [log in to unmask], and Yau Ka-fai, [log in to unmask] ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu