Dates: Friday, June 5, 2015 to Saturday, June 6, 2015
Venue: Goethe University Frankfurt / Nippon Connection Film Festival
City and State: Frankfurt, Germany
Organizers: Alexander Zahlten in cooperation with Nippon Connection and the Goethe University
Call for Papers for….
Kinema Club XV at Nippon Connection Film Festival in Frankfurt, Germany
Film and Moving Images From Japan NOW - Film in the New Media Ecology
Goethe University Frankfurt / Nippon Connection Film Festival
Deadline for submissions: March 15, 2015
We welcome submissions for the 15th Kinema Club Conference on Film and Moving Images from Japan!
This edition of Kinema Club will be held in conjunction with the Nippon Connection Film Festival, the largest festival for Japanese film, and in cooperation with the Goethe University Frankfurt. Take the opportunity to see over 100 hundred films from Japan and engage with the attending dozens of filmmakers.
This Kinema Club will focus on current film and moving images from Japan. The critical and academic attention paid to current film from Japan has receded since the late 1990s, even as domestic film regained the greater part of the box office in Japan. Meanwhile the environment for film production and distribution has changed dramatically.
In comparison with previous times things may look dark: Arthouse-type theaters such as minitheaters and meigaza are closing by the dozens. Film production in Japan is divided between TV-financed blockbusters and low- to no-budget films, with little middle ground in between. On a global level, Korean drama and cinema have eclipsed the popularity of contemporary Japanese film. But does this perspective really hold?
What kind of approaches do film and other forms of moving images from Japan need today? Do media mix and a transformed media ecology demand new conceptual frameworks and new methodologies? Does it open us up to new periodizations? What are the stakes in thinking about current film and moving images from Japan?
But also more concretely: What kind of films are being made today, what (and how) do they mean? What are the significant works of today, what is it that makes them significant?
We welcome both individual and panel submissions. Generally papers should broadly address at least one of two different themes:
The state of film from Japan today
The state of research on film from Japan today
Keynote panel: A keynote panel will discuss issues concerning current film and moving images from Japan.
Participants: Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano (Carleton University), Hikari Hori (Columbia University), Phil Kaffen (New York University), Yuka Kanno (Doshisha University), Alexander Zahlten (Harvard University)
Nippon Connection Film Festival Perks: Panel participants will have access to a limited number of free tickets for screenings. The festival will assist in setting up interviews with the filmmakers attending Nippon Connection.
Watch films from a selection of over 100 current films from all corners of the Japanese film industry.
Mingle with the dozens of filmmakers from Japan attending the festival.
Attend this year’s retrospective of Somai Shinji films, held in conjunction with the German Film Museum.
Kinema Club 15 is organized by Alexander Zahlten (Dept. of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University) in cooperation with Nippon Connection and the Goethe University
Schedule:
Friday, June 5, 2015:
- 9:00 - 10:45
Roland Domenig, Meiji Gakuin University
About the demise of movie theaters in Japan
Julian Ross, International Film Festival Rotterdam
Japanese Films at International Film Festivals: IFFR as a Case Study
MA Ran, Nagoya University
Towards the Community Cinema Network: Eiga-sai as Film Festival & Mini-theaters
Jasper Sharp, Independent Scholar
Japan and Transnational Technologies of Cinema Exhibition in the Digital Age
- 11:00 - 12:30
Ryan Cook, Emory University
Media Ecology in the Anthropocene
Yuriko Furuhata, McGill University
The “Format” and the Expanded Screen Environment
Aaron Gerow, Yale University
Kurosawa Kiyoshi and the Spectre of Cinema and Auteurship
Saturday, June 6, 2015:
- 9:00 - 10:45
Earl Jackson, Jr., National Chiao Tung University
Dis-contents of the Form: Kumakiri Kazuyoshi’s Novel Adaptations.
Kotaro NAKAGAKI, Daito Bunka University
Adolescence in the New Teen Film Movement: Shinji Sōmai, Nobuhiko Obayashi, and Cultural Tendencies of the 1980s
Dr. Lucile Druet
Contours of dream and resistanceExperimental shorts by Akino Kondoh / Yoriko Mizushiri / Shishi Yamasaki / Noriko Yamaguchi
Catherine Munroe Hotes, Nishikata Film Review / Independent Scholar
The Art of Self Promotion: Japanese Auteur Animation in the Internet Age
- 11:00 - 12:30
Dick Stegewerns, University of Oslo
And the Battle Goes On. An Analysis of the Success of Eternal Zero and Other Recent War Films
Paul Berry, Kansai Gaidai University
Rebranding Eternity:
Transforming Cynicism into Patriotic Adulation in “Eien no 0”
Shota Tsai Ogawa, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Yang Yong-hi: (A)topical Home Movies
- 16:00 - 18:00 (Location: Nippon Connection Festival Center)
Keynote Roundtable: Perspectives on the State of the Study of Film and Moving Images from Japan
Participants: Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano (Carleton University), Yuka Kanno (Doshisha University), Phil Kaffen (New York University), Hikari Hori (Columbia University), Alexander Zahlten (Harvard University)
Conference Location:
The conference will be held at the Goethe University Campus in the “Westend” area of Frankfurt, in room 7.312 on the 7th floor of the main building at the entrance to the campus
The campus is easily accessible with public transportation, though for first-timers it may be tricky - plan in time the first time you come there.