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

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.