Call for papers
2006 Film and History League Conference "The Documentary Tradition"
AREA: The Soviet / Russian and Eastern Central European Documentary
From it's very beginning Soviet documentary has presented models for the basic genres of documentary e.g. Dziga Vertov's influence on all forms of 'verite'
through to reality TV and Esfir Shub's foundations of the 'compilation documentary'. In more recent times 'late' Soviet documentary has been a potent weapon in
political change and redefinition [particularly in the work of Babak, Goldovskaya and Podnieks] whilst post-soviet documentary [not least through Sokurov]
has developed creative ways to treat the contemporary world. We are inviting submissions on all aspects of Soviet and/or Russian documentary, their reception and
their influence.
We are also considering papers which engage with Eastern Central European documentary with a focus on the negotiation between the 'legacies' of the past and
the 'responses' to the present, considered in terms of both documentary practices and of 'local' [national, regional] discourses about documentary.
Questions to be addressed include but are not limited to the following:
- How do recent documentaries from the region negotiate between the tradition and the memory of socialist documentary on the one hand, and the recent political goals of the genre, on the other hand? Is political documentary a boom in Eastern Central Europe as it is elsewhere? What is perceived as changing, and what is perceived as 'clinging to the past' in terms of what makes a documentary subject and how is that subject approached?
- How do documentaries from the region negotiate between the 'national' and the 'international', in terms of both subject-matter and visual syntax? Do
they engage with international issues or, rather, prefer to package national topics for the international market? What has survived from the tradition of Soviet verite/Eastern European 'artistic documentary', and what is the visibility of that on
the international documentary scene? Do documentary film-makers from the region feel part of a regional/international community of practitioners and adhere to a shared tradition of practice?
Deadline for submission is July 25, 2006.
The Film and History League conference details can be found at www.filmandhistory.org. The meeting will run from 8-12 November, 2006 in the Dolce Conference Center near DFW airport.
Send all inquiries and proposals to: Dr Graham Roberts, ICS, University of Leeds, UK.
groberts@leeds.ac.uk
[sursa balkans]
