Agenda

November 4–6, 2024
International Symposium

This symposium explores how the issues of borders, identities and solidarities have been tackled by and through film festivals. As a repetitive practice happening in regular intervals and at the same place, film festivals operate as ‘places of memory’ of a particular kind (Nora, 1984 [1997]). As such, they provide an institutional framework for the cultural memories they preserve and produce through their programmes. By the default of cultural memory creation (Assmann, 1995), their influence becomes long-term and wide encompassing, moving far beyond from their actual time and place. In addition, thanks to the engagement of diverse festival actors (journalists, critics, industry representatives, politicians, etc.) the narratives that they create reach diverse categories of society, not limited to those present at the screening. The influence created in such a way becomes especially important in the times of political  and military conflicts and social turbulences, when not only various kinds of liberties, but also people’s lives, can be threatened. With this in mind, this symposium brings together scholars working on diverse aspects of film festival studies to discuss interrelations between film festivals and the questions of borders, identities and solidarities. In the current context of political and social upheavals, and social movements for civil rights, they will explore the capacity of film festivals to operate not simply as spaces for cinematic representation related to borders and identities, but how they have (or may become) vehicles for forging solidarities, past, present and future.

Organised by Dunja Jelenkovic within the Marie Curie project CBA TRIESTE (“The Cinematic Battle for the Adriatic: Films, Frontiers and the Trieste Crisis”)

Organising committee
Dunja Jelenkovic (Chair), Marco Dalla Gassa, Giulio Tosi, Dianora Hollmann

Scientific committe
Tania Saeed (Lahore University), Ger Zielinski (Toronto Metropolitan University), Paolo Noto (University of Bologna), Stefano Pisu (University of Cagliari), Marco Dalla Gassa (UNIVE) and Dunja Jelenkovic (UNIVE) Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage

Programme attached.

The project CBA TRIESTE has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 101020692 (MSCA-IF-EF).