Cinergie – Il Cinema e le altre Arti: Announcements

Call for Papers - Repositioning Film Criticism. Critical Displacements among the Film Critics from 1930 to 1970: Space, Connections, Movements

Cinergie – Il Cinema e le altre Arti — 2022-10-06

The numerous and recurring cycles of institutionalization that film criticism has undergone throughout the decades have never fully disciplined this professional field, which is instead marked by a fruitful lack of specialization and uniformity. The history of film criticism therefore consists less of intellectual positions achieved once and for all than of cultural operators constantly moving across geographical space (for example along the center/periphery, or city/province axes, defined by the biographical experience of many cinephiles and film critics), across political, educational and military institutions (that are often the professional destinations of critics), across different media system (with connections between publishing industry, radio, tv, and digital media) and national as well as cultural contexts. Film criticism creates both occasional and enduring connections by means of ritual moments (such as film festivals and heated controversies in the press) that redefine the geography of cultural production. Criticism is also the gateway to the world of intellectual production for traditionally marginalized and underrepresented subjects for reasons related to gender, class, ideology, race and religion, that is the practice that allows such intellectuals to enter well-established and respected professional environments

In accordance with the related research project “A private history of Italian film criticism 1930-1970” (funded by the Italian Ministry of Research), the purpose of this monographic issue is to invite articles that question film criticism as a relational system and as a practice generating physical and symbolic repositioning, displacements, and transgressions. The main focus is on Italian film criticism, although proposals shedding light on other national contexts are more than welcome.

Proposals revolving around written and non-written sources related to the work of film critics (such as correspondence, recordings, photographs, editorial materials, ephemera), as well as methodologies capable of highlighting innovative ways of visualising critical work (such as new cinema history and digital humanities), will be assessed with particular interest. The time span insists on a long period, in the conviction that this can reveal long-lasting dynamics, overall developments of institutionalisation processes, but also “encroachments” that transcend macro-historical caesuras. Moreover, the period examined (with particular regard to the 1930s/1940s and the 1970s) sees several generations of critics confronting each other, thus increasing the complexity and multidimensionality of the fluctuations in the field.

The monographic issue invites contributions concerning topics such as (the list is not meant to be exhaustive):

the relationship between centre/periphery and city/province in the geography of film criticism;
trajectories of film criticism and critics within media environments and contexts;
the generational - geographical gap (e.g. young provinces vs. snub old center)
the repositioning of film critics in professional and ideological terms;
travel, cooperation and transnational networks;
film criticism as a form of cultural diplomacy;
the film critics’ work environment;
the entry of film criticism into educational, cultural, religious and political institutions;
film criticism as a gateway to the cultural ecosystem for under-represented subjects (minorities, opposition communities, women).

Submission details

Please send a 300/500-word abstract and a short bio to Jennifer Malvezzi, Andrea Mariani, and Paolo Noto at jennifer.malvezzi@unipr.it paolo.noto2@unibo.it andrea.mariani@uniud.it by November 12, 2022 – [subject: Repositioning Film Criticism+ name surname author(s)].

Notification of acceptance will be sent within November 22, 2022

If the proposal is accepted, the author(s) will be asked to submit the full article by February 02, 2023.

The articles must not exceed 5,000/6,000 words and may include images, clips, and links for illustrative purposes. Please, provide correct credits, permissions, and copyright information in order to be sure that the images, clips, and links are copyright free and can be published.

Contributions will be submitted to double-blind peer-review.

The issue will be published in June 2023.

Next Issue Announcement - The Agency of Film Festivals. Geopolitics, Economies and Networks

Cinergie – Il Cinema e le altre Arti — 2022-07-19

Throughout the last ten years, Cinergie. Il cinema e le alter arti has represented an important platform of discussion and study for the interdisciplinary field of film festival studies in Italy, accommodating several special issues and a variety of articles which have explored the position of festivals within cinephilia, film industry and circulation. Rowing in this direction, the next issue draws from academic research which was presented at the Reframing Film Festivals conference, (Venice, February 2020) and hinges on three key concepts in studies of film festivals – geopolitics, economies and networks. The articles included in the next issue make use of different methodological approach (historical research, economical and institutional analysis, ideological critique) to unravel a variety of institutions, sub-circuits, exchanges and relationships in the domain of film festivals, adopting), spanning across a variety of research topics. These topics include the genealogy of the concept of festival in 1930s Europe, the mediating role and activities of festivals like Cannes, Karlovy Vary, Pula and Venice in the context of the Trieste Crisis, the establishment of the Locarno and its founding relationships with (touristic, industrial, cultural) stakeholders, and the proposal of a systematic mode of engaging with film festival’s public utterance and modus operandi from the lens of ideology critique. Therefore, although fragmented in different localities and historical formations, this issue demonstrates the branching-out and multidisciplinary nature of research on festivals and indicates viable ways to make the study of festivals relevant to the understanding of geopolitical relations, local economies and transnational histories.

UPDATED CALL FOR PAPERS - Critical Performances. Actors and Actresses at the Time of the COVID-19 Crisis in Italy

Cinergie – Il Cinema e le altre Arti — 2021-10-25

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted on media production, distribution, and experience. Long-established practices have undergone dramatic interruptions or major shifts and respective laborers have been forced to strongly revise their activities (Hediger, Keidle, Melamed, Somaini 2020; Damasio 2020; Adgate 2021; Fortmueller 2021). For instance, film sets and television studios reconsidered their modes of operation in the face of Covid-prevention rules, protocols and requirements. Likewise, in an epidemic scenario in constant change, film festivals and awards found themselves in the need to repeatedly revise their rituals and forms, to be able to carry on at least part of their activities. Media practitioners have thus been faced with the need of reflecting and discussing pitfalls and opportunities brought to light by the pandemic, while also implementing strategies for facing and countering the crisis.

In Italy, actors and actresses have been among the most affected groups of professionals. Whereas the usual pace of film, television and media production, release and promotion has met deep alterations, as much as usual networking activities during periods of lockdown, fame and exposure have foregrounded film and TV stars in social engagement activities and as testimonials of public health campaigns (including the first tentative rules, the lockdown periods, and the efforts towards mass vaccination).

The aim of this issue of Cinergie is surveying and understanding the manifold impact of the COVID-19 crisis on Italian actors and actresses. Topics within the scope of this issue include but are not limited to:

Training actors and actresses at the time of the COVID-19 crisis: schools, academies, coaching
Media production, acting performance, and restrictions: emergency, strategies, and tactics
Actors, actresses and the promotion of media products: from testimonials to remote endorsers?
Actors, irregular work, labour activism: workers’ solidarity and institutional and commercial policies during the pandemic
Acknowledging actors and actresses: festivals, awards, and the economy of prestige during the COVID-19 crisis
Stardom, public health, and social engagement
Social networks, self-promotion, and actors and actresses during the COVID-19 crisis
Job-seeking: finding acting jobs at the times of the pandemic
Actors, intermediaries, and the COVID-19 crisis: coaches, agents, management, casting departments, press agents, and social media managers during the pandemic
Theoretical and methodological contributions on actors and actresses in the pandemic
Case histories on specific actors or actresses, film productions, television shows, digital platforms in the national context and/or in the transnational connections between Italy and other markets.

Submission details

Please send an abstract and a short biographical note to Luca Antoniazzi, Cristina Formenti, and Giulia Muggeo at: luca.antoniazzi3@unibo.it, cristina.formenti@uniud.it, and giuliafrancesca.muggeo@unito.it by November 21, 2021 — [subject: Cinergie Media Performers + name surname author(s)].

Abstracts, in English or Italian, should be from 300 to 500 words of length. Notification of acceptance will be sent within November 28, 2021.

If the proposal is accepted, the author(s) will be asked to submit the full article by January 16, 2022.

The articles must not exceed 5,000/6,000 words and can include images, clips, and links for illustrative purposes. Please, provide correct credits, permissions and copyright information in order to be sure that the images, clips, and links are copyright free and can be published.

Contributions will be submitted to double-blind peer-review.

The issue will be published in July 2022.

Bibliography

- B. Adgate (2021), The Impact Covid-19 Had on the Entertainment Industry in 2020, “Forbes”, https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2021/04/13/the-impact-covid-19-had-on-the-entertainment-industry-in-2020/?sh=50049538250f (Last access: July 9, 2021).

- M.J. Damasio (2020), Covid 19. The End of the Audiovisual Sector?, “CST online”, https://cstonline.net/covid-19-the-end-of-the-audiovisual-sector-by-manuel-jose-damasio/ (Last access: July 9, 2021).

- K. Fortmueller (2021), Hollywood Shutdown. Production, Distribution, and Exhibition in the Time of COVID, University of Texas Press, Austin, TX.

- Vinzenz Hediger, Philipp Dominik Keidl, Laliv Melamed, and Antonio Somaini (eds) (2020), Pandemic Media: Preliminary Notes Toward an Inventory, Meson, Lüneburg.

Call for Papers - Critical Performances. Media Performers at the Time of the COVID-19 Crisis in Italy

Cinergie – Il Cinema e le altre Arti — 2021-07-20

In Italy, media performers have been among the most affected groups of professionals. Whereas the usual pace of film, television and media production, release and promotion has met deep alterations, as much as usual networking activities during periods of lockdown, fame and exposure have foregrounded celebrities in social engagement activities and as testimonials of public health campaigns (including the first tentative rules, the lockdown periods, and the efforts towards mass vaccination).

The aim of this issue of Cinergie is surveying and understanding the manifold impact of the COVID-19 crisis on Italian media performers. Topics within the scope of this issue include but are not limited to:

Training media performers at the time of the COVID-19 crisis: schools, academies, coaching
Media production, performance, and restrictions: emergency, strategies, and tactics
Promoting media products: from testimonials to remote endorsers?
Performers, irregular work, labour activism: workers’ solidarity and institutional and commercial policies during the pandemic
Acknowledging performers: festivals, awards, and the economy of prestige during the COVID-19 crisis
Celebrities, public health, and social engagement
Social networks, self-promotion, and media performers during the COVID-19 crisis
Job-seeking: finding acting jobs at the times of the pandemic
Performers, intermediaries, and the COVID-19 crisis: coaches, agents, management, casting departments, press agents, and social media managers during the pandemic
Theoretical and methodological contributions on media performers in the pandemic
Case histories on specific performers, film productions, television shows, digital platforms in the national context and/or in the transnational connections between Italy and other markets.

Submission details

Please send an abstract and a short biographical note to Luca Antoniazzi, Cristina Formenti, and Giulia Muggeo at: luca.antoniazzi3@unibo.it, cristina.formenti@uniud.it, and giuliafrancesca.muggeo@unito.it by October 24, 2021 — [subject: Cinergie Media Performers + name surname author(s)].

Abstracts, in English or Italian, should be from 300 to 500 words of length. Notification of acceptance will be sent within November 5, 2021.

If the proposal is accepted, the author(s) will be asked to submit the full article by January 16, 2022.

Contributions will be submitted to double-blind peer-review.

The issue will be published in July 2022.

Bibliography

- K. Fortmueller (2021), Hollywood Shutdown. Production, Distribution, and Exhibition in the Time of COVID, University of Texas Press, Austin, TX.

- Vinzenz Hediger, Philipp Dominik Keidl, Laliv Melamed, and Antonio Somaini (eds) (2020), Pandemic Media: Preliminary Notes Toward an Inventory, Meson, Lüneburg.

Call for Papers - Film Heritage and Digital Scholarship: Computer-Based Approaches to Film Archiving, Restoration and Philology

Cinergie – Il Cinema e le altre Arti — 2020-12-28

Edited by Rossella Catanese (University of Udine), Adelheid Heftberger (German Bundesarchiv, Berlin), and Christian Gosvig Olesen (University of Amsterdam/Utrecht University)

In recent years, film and media studies have witnessed an emerging interest in integrating computer-based techniques for analyzing and visualizing both quantitative and qualitative data relating to film. This emerging interest can be seen in the development of approaches that involve new and practice-based audiovisual methods, such as videographic criticism and video annotation, as well as various data visualization and digital humanities techniques that rely on empirical methods such as data mining, linked data, geo-tagging and mapping, in order to study, among others, filmic structure, style, discourse, storytelling and reception (Grant, 2012; Ingravalle, Prelinger & Latsis 2015; Ferguson, 2016; Verhoeven, 2016). This development has opened new paths for film history scholarship and its traditional focus on the cultural significance of films in terms of aesthetics and medium specificity, while also leading scholars to explore and reflect on potential new paths for interdisciplinary research methods (Grant, 2012; Acland & Hoyt, 2016). Through new tools and collaboration with scholars from disciplines that were traditionally distant from film and media studies - such as data, computer and information science, and practice-based research - the relation between researchers and their sources, films and related materials, is being reconfigured.

This development creates new expectations and challenges for film heritage institutions as well, specifically with regard to the role that they may play in relation to digital scholarship in creating and offering access to archival collections and data. As still larger digitization projects have continued to emerge in recent years, within a political climate that promotes and stimulates digitization and development of digital research infrastructure for studying collections, film heritage institutions need to develop sustainable and critical models for facilitating, shaping and benefiting from digital scholarship in film and media studies, all the while being mindful of their own institutional core values and missions. This endeavor, we suggest, entails that film heritage institutions develop a greater sensitivity towards key concerns of digital scholarship in film and media studies at large, while also making sure that digital scholarships in turn develop a better sense of archival concerns in their practice (Heftberger, 2014).

Taking the cue from this suggestion, this special issue offers a platform for thinking through productive connections, synergies and frictions between emerging methods in film and media studies and the current work of film heritage institutions. In doing so, we encourage contributors to stage speculative encounters between approaches and practices as well as to discuss concrete case studies, so as to imagine future paths.

With the issue we are looking for a broad range of approaches and contributions pertaining to a wide variety of practices. Some of the questions we specifically invite contributors to consider are:

How may the comparative study of film prints, an integral part of film philology and restoration, benefit from videographic approaches to film analysis and data visualization, both elements that often involve comparative analysis of film “texts”?
How may scholarly annotations made within online research infrastructures or environments feedback into archival databases through linked data and inform archival work in a “virtuous cycle” (MEP/Williams, 2018), and what may best practices look like?
How may film heritage institutions support the concerns of digital scholarship by highlighting bias, ambiguity and uncertainty in collection data so as to avoid the risk of “engaging in positivist reductionism and of fundamentally ignoring philosophical aesthetics and its analytical tradition” (Flueckiger 2017)?
How may film heritage institutions nurture “distant viewing” of collections (Tilton & Taylor, 2019) through interface development based on existing collection data and/or on data created with visual analysis software?
How may the affordances of high-resolution scanning and scanning of the edge area of film elements benefit aesthetic and historical analysis of archival film as a material artefact, as well as close reading approaches?

In addition to these questions, contributors are invited to take into consideration theoretical issues as well as specific case studies related (but not limited) to these themes:

Theoretical reflections on the relationship between digital humanities and film archiving, restoration and philological analysis, with regard to digital film historical research methods and traditions focusing on specific questions, epistemes, and assumptions;
Specific case studies involving application of digital methods and tools in the context of film history research projects;
Research design in digital humanities projects, i.e. the development of databases, algorithms, software, tools, digital and virtual research environments;
Digital archives (online database, data management systems, online exhibitions, etc.), indexing and distribution for film heritage;
The role of digital humanities in the development of technology for film restoration (scanners, laser printers, etc.).
Mapping and sharing of filmographic data, as well as developing new (interactive) platforms.

Submission details

Please send an abstract and a short biographical note to Rossella Catanese, Adelheid Heftberger, and Christian Gosvig Olesen at: rossella.catanese@uniud.it, a.heftberger@bundesarchiv.de, and c.g.olesen@uva.nl by April 1st, 2021 — [subject: Film Heritage and Digital Scholarship + name surname author(s)].

Abstracts should be from 300 to 500 words of length (English). Notification of acceptance will be sent within April 10, 2021.

If the proposal is accepted, the author(s) will be asked to submit the full article by June 15, 2021.

Contributions will be submitted to double-blind peer-review.

The issue will be published in December 2021.

Call for Papers – Immersive Stories. Virtual Reality, Post-Cinema and Storytelling

Cinergie – Il Cinema e le altre Arti — 2020-07-30

Edited by Simone Arcagni (Università degli Studi di Palermo) and Adriano D’Aloia (Università degli Studi della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”)

In recent years, virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a new frontier of innovation and experimentation within what is known as “immersive entertainment” — gaming, art, museum exhibitions, TV and cinema. The proliferation on the market of new headsets (from the expensive HTC VIVE and Oculus to the popular Google Cardbox), the spread of platforms, apps and also VR cinemas around the world, and the inclusion of VR productions in international film festivals (e.g. Sundance, Tribeca, Venice) are trends demonstrating that VR is no longer just a fascinating 1980s-inspired literary or cinematic subject (from Tron to the Matrix trilogy, to the recent Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One). VR is also a new way of designing and creating an experience in which the spectator is more directly, immediately, and effectively involved and entertained through immersion and a strong sense of presence, i.e. the illusion of being part of an alternative world.

Moreover, VR (and immersive technologies in general) have seen a real explosion of new interest during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency, due to the need to avoid travel and social contact. The global crisis led many companies to adopt VR as a tool for their marketing and communication strategies. The entertainment industry has realized that the experience of simulating exploration and social interaction in safe conditions offered by VR deserve to be further developed.

Although we are in the early stages of the VR adventure, significant steps in theoretical reflection have already been taken regarding psychological and philosophical concepts such as presence, transportation, embodiment and empathy, or physiological issues such as motion sickness and other adverse responses to the VR experience in general. Much has been written on technical aspects of VR systems in cybernetics and artificial intelligence, and we have also learned a lot about the history of VR as an audio-visual media along a timeline that goes from Sensorama to the Oculus Rift. On the other hand, so far, very little has been said regarding the narrative dimensions of VR.

The special section of the issue aims to explore the relationship between VR and (post)-cinematic storytelling in both fiction and non-fiction modes.

The formal possibilities of VR actually change the way a story is told. The screen and the frame — emblematic of the “traditional” form of the filmic narrative experience — seem to vanish in VR. The expansion of the visual horizon to 360 degrees, in fact, disrupts the edges of the frame and creates a field that can be potentially explored in its entirety. Whereas in canonical narrative the storyteller (and the filmmaker) draw the viewer’s attention to precise and unequivocal locations, the VR story can be “located” anywhere around the viewer, and thus requires strategies that direct one’s attention so that narrative events can be properly experienced. So, what about the formal solutions that organize the user’s experience? What about the audio-visual “grammar” — framing, composition, editing, transitions, camera angles and movement, lighting, continuity, point of view etc. — which (both literally and figuratively) manipulate the user’s perspective and orient and steer his/her attention through the narrative?

Moreover, the medium of VR (namely tracking and rotational technology) allows different forms of “real-time storytelling,” which depend on the user’s response and ocular behaviour. For example, the story (i.e. the environment, the characters, the events) may develop differently depending on which characters or objects the user decides to concentrate on the longest. Although limited to a given number of options (as in interactive games), the user chooses how the story will proceed. Contrary to the traditional mode of narration, the power of narrative choice is thus transferred from the storyteller to a user conceived as a “storymaker.” What are the theoretical implications of VR real-time storytelling with regard to classical theories of film narration? VR technology creates new physical conditions for experiencing a story (seated on a rotating chair or free to move in space), which also depend on different levels of immersion (from 360° videos to interactive films and games); the user has the freedom (and the obligation) to explore the visual and narrative field, testing the response of the world to his/her own observation-shifts and movements. Are traditional accounts of film viewing still able to describe the condition of experiencing VR stories? The shift from viewer of a film to explorer of a field seems to call for theoretical paradigms that give the body and the sensorimotor level of experience a pivotal role.

VR is thus a hybrid and post-cinematic multi-medium able to offer a multisensory experience in which story continues to play a crucial role. VR calls into question and radicalizes the fluidity and openness of the relationship between the story and the spectator and probes the way in which storytelling has so far been analysed in film and media studies.

References

Arcagni S., Visioni digitali. Video, web e nuove tecnologie, Einaudi, Torino 2016.

Arcagni S., L’occhio della macchina, Einaudi, Torino 2018.

Bodini A., Narrative Language of Virtual Reality, World VR Forum, Geneva 2017.

Broadhurst S., Machon J., Performance and Technology: Practices of Virtual Embodiment and Interactivity, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2006.

Bryant A., Pollock G. (eds.), Digital and Other Virtualities, Tauris, New York 2010.

Bucher J.K., Storytelling for Virtual Reality: Methods and Principles for Crafting Immersive Narratives, Routledge, New York 2018.

Calleja G., In-Game. From Immersion to Incorporation, The MIT Press, Cambridge (MA) - London 2011.

Carbone M., Filosofia-schermi. Dal cinema alla rivoluzione digitale, Raffaello Cortina, Milano 2016.

Casetti F., The Lumière Galaxy. Seven Key World for the Cinema to Come, Columbia University Press, New York 2015.

D’Aloia A., “Virtually Present, Physically Invisible. Virtual reality immersion and emersion in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Carne y Arena,” Senses of Cinema, 87, 2018, http://sensesofcinema.com/2018/feature-articles/virtually-present-physically-invisible-virtual-reality-immersion-and-emersion-in-alejandro-gonzalez-inarritus-carne-y-arena/.

Dalpozzo C., Negri F., Novaga A. (eds.), La realtà virtuale. Dispositivi, estetiche, immagini, Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2018.

Dogramaci, B., Liptay, F. (eds.), Immersion in the Visual Arts and Media, Brill-Rodopi, Leiden-Boston 2016.

Dooley K., “Storytelling with virtual reality in 360-degrees: a new screen grammar,” Studies in Australasian Cinema, 11:3, 2017, pp. 161-171.

Hillis K., Digital Sensations. Space, Identity and Embodiment in Virtual Reality, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis - London 1999.

Mateer J., “Directing for Cinematic Virtual Reality: how the traditional film director’s craft applies to immersive environments and notions of presence,” Journal of Media Practice, 18:1, 2017, pp. 14-25

Montani P., Tre forme di creatività: tecnica, arte, politica, Cronopio, Napoli 2017.

Noë A., Varieties of Presence, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA) 2012.

Popat S., “Missing in Action: Embodied Experience and Virtual Reality,” Theatre Journal, 68 (3), 2016, pp. 357-378.

Ryan M.-L., Narrative as Virtual Reality. Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore - London 2001.

Sherman W.R., Craig A.B., Understanding Virtual Reality, Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco 2003.

Slater M., “Place Illusion and Plausibility Can Lead to Realistic Behaviour in Immersive Virtual Environments,” Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci, 364/1535, 2009, pp. 3549-3557.

Sutherland I., “The Ultimate Display.” In: R. Packer, K. Jordan, eds., Multi- media. Form Wagner to Virtual Reality, W. W. Norton & Company, New York 2002.

Submission details

Please send an abstract and a short biographical note to both Simone Arcagni (simone.arcagni@unipa.it) and Adriano D’Aloia (adriano.daloia@unicampania.it) by October 25, 2020 — [subject: Cinergie VR Storytelling + name surname author(s)].

Abstracts should be from 300 to 500 words of length (English) and include 3-5 fundamental bibliographical references.

If the proposal is accepted, the author(s) will be asked to submit the full article by January 15, 2021.

The articles must not exceed 5,000/6,000 words.

Contributions will be submitted to double-blind peer-review.

The issue number 19 of Cinergie will be published in July 2021.