To all SCREEN-L participants: I am posting this announcement for a colleague of mine here at Clark University. You may correspond with me here on the network if you have any questions, and I will forward them to him. Otherwise, please mail your proposal directly to him at the address listed at the end of this announcement. Cheers, Lesli Cohen, Department of Visual & Performing Arts, Clark University ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ DOCUMENTING FICTIONS: Documentary Dimensions of the Fiction Film A Call for Papers Clark University and the Centre Universitaire de Luxembourg, joined by the Cinematheque Municipale de Luxembourg, will be hosting a conference devoted to the theme "Documenting Fictions: Documentary Dimensions of the Fiction Film." The conference will be held in Luxembourg in late June 1993. About the Theme Documentary filmmaking is frequently described as being irreconcilably different from "classical" narrative filmmaking with respect to its production practices, the aesthetic dynamics of its texts, and the audience interests which its films address. Yet some national cinemas, such as Cuba's, have routinely generated texts mixing documentary and fictive components. Even the Hollywood cinema includes instances of simulating documentary film style or promoting films of topical appeal as if they serve an informational function for audiences. The purpose of the conference is to explore through theoretical, historical, industrial, and textual studies the fiction film's intersections with documentary practice. The conference committee is interested in essays that address topics such as inclusions of documentary footage within fiction texts, textual appropriations of stylistic traits of the documentary (such as cinema verite camerawork), films blurring the "line" between fiction and documentary, considerations of social problems, historical and topical films as "creative treatments of actuality," vestiges of the "cinema of attraction" within the classical Hollywood cinema, exhibitor and distributor promotions of films as documentary viewing experiences, documentarists working in fiction formats, the limits of fiction's interests in documentary, etc. Please mail a 250-word proposal for a 30 to 40 minute presentation to: Dana Benelli, Coordinator Documenting Fictions Conference Committee c/o Department of Visual & Performing Arts -- Screen Studies Program Clark University, 950 Main Street Worcester, Massachusetts 01610-1477 USA Deadline for submissions is February 1, 1993. Notification of ten to fifteen European and American scholars selected as conference participants will take place by the end of February. The conference plans to assist participants with the cost of travel to and from Luxembourg. Other individuals interested in the work of the conference are invited to attend its sessions. It is anticipated that the papers presented at the conference will subsequently be published as an anthology.