10th Annual Small Cinemas ConferenceInstituto de Ciências Sociais - Universidade de LisboaLisbon, 25-27 September 2019

Este evento é financiado por fundos nacionais através da FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, I.P. no âmbito dos projectos UID/ELT/00509/2019, UID/SOC/50013/2019 e FACC

Organization

Filipa Rosário (CEC-ULisboa)

Inês Ponte (ICS-ULisboa)

Mariana Liz (ICS-ULisboa)

Pedro Figueiredo Neto (ICS-ULisboa)

cover illustration: ilaria bozzini

keynote speech 1

Honduran Cinema: From Product Placement to Cinematic Legislation

Tamara FalicovUniversity of Kansas, USA

AbstractThis presentation will open with a brief overview of the history of Honduran cinema to the current day. Honduran cinema has its origins as late as 1962 with its first feature film, but has a 60 year hiatus until a second feature is exhibited. This history of fits and starts exemplifies how difficult it has been for small cinemas to maintain continuity and stability over time. Rather than focus on the discontinuities, however, my focus will be on a string of extremely successful comedies that have reached hundreds of thousands of domestic viewers beginning in 2007. From 2007 to 2018 there has been a boom of filmmaking with 30 films and 870,000 spectators. I will examine how product placement has been the strategy that these commercial filmmakers have adopted to finance their films in the absence of film legislation. I will also focus on two other models of filmmaking in a small cinemas context: one is a university sponsored cinema model, exemplified by Hispano Duron, and the remainign model is the low budget art house cinema model which relies mainly on international film festival funds, co-production money, and some small funds from domestic patrons. This more typical art house cinema is also thriving, as many film students are studying in Honduras now, but the films’ circulation is not as possible compared to commercial cinema. Another support for this model of filmmaking is the Icaro film festival in Tegucigalpa, which serves as a platform for national filmmakers and can be a stepping stone to compete in a larger Central American film festival, the Icaro in Guatemala. Ultimately, both Honduran art house and commercial filmmakers banded together to lobby for film legislation which was recently ratified in early 2019 but the implementation of the law is nowhere in sight as of late 2019.

BioTamara Falicov is a Professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies at the University of Kansas and is a core member of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She is an Associate Dean for Research in the Arts and Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. She was awarded a Docking Young Faculty Fellowship for mid-career scholars at KU (2013-2016) and served as Chair of Film and Media Studies from 2009-2015. Professor Falicov has previously served as a visiting Professor at the University of Medellin in 2010 and 2016. She is the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship to Argentina, the result of which is the book The Cinematic Tango: Contemporary Argentine Film (London: Wallflower Press/Columbia University Press, 2007) which was selected as a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, 2008. Her book, Latin American Film Industries (British Film Institute/Bloomsbury Academic) was published in June 2019. Professor Falicov has written multiple essays on co-productions, the cultural politics of Programa Ibermedia, Cine en construccion (Films in Progress) and the importance of European film funds such as Hubert Bals Fund and World Cinema Fund which support Global South filmmakers. Two essays on film festival research have been published in anthologies for Wiley-Blackwell (Companion to Contemporary Latin American Film) and Routledge (Companion to Latin American Cinema). Professor Falicov is the co-editor of the book series Framing Film Festivals for Palgrave Macmillan with Marijke de Valck (University of Utrecht, Netherlands). In addition to her Fulbright award, she was the recipient of an NEH Summer Stipend and was funded by NEH to attend a Summer University Teacher’s Institute in São Paulo, Brazil. She was awarded a one month Institute for Latin American Studies fellowship to the University of London in summer 2018, a Fulbright Specialist award to give a series of lectures and a workshop at the Universidade Lusófona in Lisboa Fall 2018, as well as a cultural arts grant to give a workshop at the Ícaro film festival in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

keynote speech 2

Small cinemas, global audiences? Reflections on minor cinema cultures in the digital age with a case study on young audiences in Belgium

Philippe MeersUniversity of Antwerp, Belgium

AbstractStudies on contemporary audiences often emphasize major changes since the analogue era: new means of access to media – through a wider variety of screens and platforms–characterize film consumption in the digital age of ‘media convergence’. Film viewers are no longer bound to the availability of films in local cinemas, programming on television, or availability on DVD. Digitization thus put an end to temporal and geographical limitations it seems, increasing contemporary audiences’ choice and access to film material worldwide. Media policy discourses equally tap into this optimist discourse on ‘audiencing’, ‘audience building’ and ‘audience activation’. But does this rather celebratory view also apply to small cinemas? In other words, does the rise of Netflix and other online distribution platforms really widen the audience scope for minor cinemas, allowing it to reach global audiences? Or do they face the same unequal struggle with hegemonic Hollywood fare, albeit in other battle fields? And how do language issues come into the equation for countries with small language communities. Are industry traditions mirroring cultural tastes of dubbing and subtitling really challenged by digital distribution? And finally, is the concept of national cinema (and its audiences) still valid as an analytical concept, in an age of endless streaming, Netflix, trans- and post-national cinemas? The debate is open, and audience studies and political economy often take opposite sides. Grounding the debate in a concrete case study, we focus on cinema and audiences in Flanders, the northern region of the federal state of Belgium. The Flemish cinema landscape has known a boost over the last decade on the level of film policy, production and international festival success. Flemish cinema has gained strength on the regional/national market, drawing larger and young audiences to the cinemas again. But how does ‘convergence culture’ affect this small cinema and its audiences? We go into two large scale audience research projects. Recent survey and interview data from 2015 from a large scale project Screen(ing) Audiences on film consumption of Belgian-Flemish youth are compared to data of a quasi-identical research project from 2001. We examine young film audiences’ concrete consumption practices and discourses at the beginning of the millennium in a still mainly analogue world and 15 years

later in a fully digital age. The similarities in the way the industry constructs boundaries and audience practices develop mainly within these constraints, are striking. Young audiences’ discourses in the case of Flanders construct a complex, multilayered concept of national cinema and its audiences. This small cinema is not confined to a local audience, although a global audience remains an illusory ambition. We end with a reflection on frameworks for the analysis of small cinema audiences. The continuity in film audience practices and their structural constraints calls for a political economy recontextualisation. This allows us to imagine new research trajectories, bringing a political economy of small cinemas and a critical study of their audiences together.

BioPhilippe Meers is full professor in film and media studies in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. He is deputy director of the Visual and Digital Cultures Research Center (ViDi), chair of the Center for Mexican Studies and chair of the Antwerp Doctoral School. Meers has published widely on historical and contemporary film culture and audiences. With Richard Maltby and Daniel Biltereyst, he edited Explorations in New Cinema (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011); Audiences, Cinema and Modernity (Routledge, 2012) and The Routledge Companion to New Cinema History (2019). With Annette Kuhn and Daniel Biltereyst, he co-edited a special issue of Memory Studies (2017) on cinema-going. Meers has been the supervisor of various large scale projects on historical and contemporary cinema culture and audiences. With Daniel Biltereyst and José Carlos Lozano, he is coordinating a Spanish language research network ‘Cultura de la Pantalla’ on cinema history with teams in Mexico, Colombia, Spain and the US. He serves in the editorial board of Participations; Media and Communication; Global Media Journal Mexico and Revista de Santiago. Meers was founding chair of the Film Studies section of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA), founding member of the History of Moviegoing, Exhibition and Reception Network (HoMER), and was a visiting scholar at Moody School of Communication UT Austin in Spring 2016.

film screening

Cães Sem Coleira/ Dogs Without a Leash

Rosa Coutinho Cabral1997, 66 min, with English subtitles.Followed by a Q&A with the director.Cinemateca Portuguesa

A film within a film and a film about film, Rosa Coutinho Cabral’s Cães sem Coleira/Dogs Without a Leash is a prime example of the marginality often experienced by cinema in Portugal. Not very well known, the film was released in 1997 but only screened a few times in the two decades of its existence. In addition to being relatively obscure, it is a marginal film because of its form and content. Dogs Without a Leash tells the story of António Feliciano (b. 1939), one of the most senior and most dynamic professionals of film exhibition in southern Portugal, and particularly in small villages on the coast of Alentejo. A film lover, Feliciano would try to watch, and then screen, as many films as possible in the Portugal of the New State dictatorship (1933-1974). Navigating distribution and exhibition constraints since the 1960s (including censorship in the New State years), he would bring cinema to town halls and public squares in rural Portugal, and opened his own cinema theatre, Girasol, in Vila Nova de Milfontes. Rosa Coutinho Cabral tells the story of Feliciano using fiction to reconstruct some of the most important moments in his life and career, and casting Feliciano to appear in documentary sequences in which he tells us more about himself, or directs the actors’ performances. The film begins by introducing the actors as the characters they will play, and Rosa Coutinho Cabral can be seen at different points in the narrative. Self-reflexive but always critical, the film’s gaze is on cinema in Portugal, particularly in restricted settings and remote communities. Thus addressing some of the key themes of this conference, this is a film that questions the spaces occupied by cinema, throughout the twentieth century and today, and that brings to the fore matters of language and legislation (once we discover who the ‘dogs’ in the title are), passion and nostalgia – and the way in which these concepts still inform our vision of cinema, its history and its future.

programme

DAY 1Wednesday, 25 September 2019

09.0009.30

09.3010.00

10.0011.15

11.1511.45

11.4513.15

13.1514.30

Welcome and Registration

OpeningFilipa Lowndes Vicente (ICS-ULisboa)

Keynote Speech 1Honduran Cinema: From Product Placement to Cinematic Legislation

Tamara Falicov, University of Kansas, USAAuditório Sedas NunesChair: Mariana Liz, ICS-ULisboa, Portugal

Coffee Break

A1 - Historical approaches to cinema and spaceAuditório Sedas NunesChair: Filipa Vicente, ICS-ULisboa, Portugal

A Truly Black Cinema? Lincoln, New York City, 1909-1929 Agata Frymus, Ghent University, Belgium

Vintage Sahia: Curating the archive of a former ‘propaganda’ film studio for the presentAdina Bradeanu, University of Oxford, UK

How far can (travel) films travel? On the trail of Amélia Borges Rodrigues Sofia Sampaio, CRIA-ISCTE-IUL, Portugal

Lunch5th Floor, ICS-ULisboa

A2 - Film Exhibition in Alternative Spaces (I)Sala 3Chair: José Duarte, CEAUL-ULisboa, Portugal

Close encounter of the fourth kind: notes on cinematic experiences in the classroomPedro Florêncio, CEC-ULisboa, Portugal

Projecting Domestic Films in Guayaquil: Reflections on the Possibilities of Small Cinema in a Small Space Libertad Gills, Universidad de las Artes in Guayaquil, Ecuador / Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain

Contemporary Microcinemas and DIY Film Exhibition in IstanbulSezen Kayhan, Koc University, Turkey

14.3016.00

16.0016.30

16.3017.45

20.00

B1 - The Nation in Small Cinemas Auditório Sedas Nunes Chair: Gertjan Willems, University of Antwerp/Ghent University, Belgium

Cinéma-monde on a Belgian scale: Families and/as Borderlands in Francophone Belgian CinemaMichael Gott, University of Cincinnati, USA

Off Screen Space in Galician CinemaIván Villarmea Álvarez, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain From the Ghetto to the Bar. The Israeli Siege Syndrome in Contemporary CinemaOmri Yavin and Dor Yaccobi, Kibbutzim College, Israel

Coffee Break

C1 - Small Cinemas and the CityAuditório Sedas NunesChair: Iván Villarmea Álvarez, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain

“What happens in Las Vedras... stays in Las Vedras”: looking into Delírio in Las Vedras, by Edgar Pêra (2017)José Duarte, CEAUL-ULisboa, Portugal

Locating the Transnational City in New Pakistani Cinema’s Urban FilmZebunnisa Hamid, LUMS in Lahore, Pakistan

National spaces in Belgian cinemaGertjan Willems, University of Antwerp/Ghent University, Belgium

Conference Dinner Noobai Café(see maps)

B2 - Indigenous Cinemas Sala 3Chair: Pedro Figueiredo Neto, ICS-ULisboa, Portugal

Unseen seen: site unseenChris LaLonde, SUNY Oswego, USA

The Representation of Indigenous Peoples on Screen: Transgressing Boundaries and Unlocking the Potential of Small CinemasKarolina Ginalska, University of Birmingham, UK

C2 - Film Festivals Sala 3Chair: Inês Ponte, ICS-ULisboa

The Role of the Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) in channelling East Asian cinema to the European Film Festival circuit during the 1980’sNatália Fábics, Media Institute of Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Media Budapest, Hungary

Film Programming in the Spaces of Crisis: 1st Sarajevo Film Festival (1993) during the Balkan WarsDorota Ostrowska, Birkbeck, University of London, UK

Spatial Reconfiguration of Contemporary Turkish Film Industry: The Case of International Istanbul Film FestivalEcem Yildirim, Concordia University, Canada

programme

DAY 2Thursday, 26 September 2019

10.0011.15

11.1511.45

11.4513.15

D1 - Politics and Small CinemasAuditório Sedas NunesChair: Konrad Klejsa, University of Lodz, Poland

Traditional community identity and residential architecture: disappearing, loss and outrooting in The Beads of One Rosary (1980) by Kazimierz Kutz and Byker (1983) by Sirkka-Liisa KonttinenKarolina Kosińska, Institute of Art of Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland

Breaking, Crossing and Guarding Eastern European Borders in Documentary Films: “Waiting for Invasion” (2017), “Disco and Atomic War” (2009), “1989” (2014) and “The Bus” (2005)Renata Šukaitytė, Faculty of Communication, Vilnius University, Lithuania

Tunis Plays Itself: Kaouther Ben HaniaBennet Schaber, SUNY Oswego, USA

Coffee Break

E1- Film Exhibition in Alternative Spaces (II)Auditório Sedas NunesChair: Sezen Kayhan, Koc University, Turkey

(Bus) Lock, (film) Stock and (moonshine) Barrel: Travelling Cinemas in Poland 1945-1955Konrad Klejsa, University of Lodz, Poland

New forms of art-house cinema exhibition with public financing in Spain. The case of the Cinema Truffaut in GironaFrancesc Vilallonga, Ramon Llull University, Spain

The return of the indigenous gaze in a multi-ethnic nationMaria Luna, Uniminuto, Bogota, Colombia / TecnoCampus ESUPT UPF, Barcelona, Spain

D2 - Deepening the Small: Cinema and non-hegemonic languages in Catalunya, Euskadi and GalizaSala PolivalenteChair: Marta Pérez Pereiro, Universidad Santiago Compostela (USC), Spain

Policies and strategies for subtitling films in small nations with non-hegemonic languagesAntía López, USC, Beatriz Zabalondo Loidi, UPV, Maria Soliña Barreiro, ESUPT-UPF, Spain

Subtitling and Translation for the visibility of non-hegemonic languages CinemaMaria Soliña Barreiro, ESUPT-UPF, Patxi Azpillada Goenaga, UPV, Marta Pérez Pereiro, USC, Spain

Film Festivals and other spaces for small cinemas exhibitionFernando Redondo Neira, USC, Judith Clares, UOC, Marijo Deogracias, UPV, Spain

E2 - Claustrophobia and Escapism in Post-Communist Hungarian CinemaSala PolivalenteChair: György Kalmár, University of Debrecen, Hungary

Spatial Figurations of Entrapment in Hungarian CinemaGyörgy Kalmár, University of Debrecen, Hungary

Alternate History and Escapism in Socialist Hungary in Lisa, the Fox FairyImola Bülgözdi, University of Debrecen, Hungary

Female Heroism in French CinemaLenuta Giukin, SUNY Oswego, USA

13.1514.30

14.3015.45

18.30

Lunch5th Floor, ICS-ULisboa

F - Researching mobility across Latin American and Iberian small nationsAuditório Sedas NunesChair: Miguel Fernández Labayen, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain

Picturing Venezuelan Migration in the Caribbean: Current and Historical Movement as Seen in Trinidad and TobagoChristopher Meir, Universidad de Carlos III de Madrid, Spain

Amateur Basque films of the world: tracking the Basque mobility in Latin America Miguel Fernández Labayen & Farshad Zahedi, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain Towards the construction of a database of cinematic mobilities across the Hispanic Atlantic: researching small cinemas. The cases of Uruguay and NicaraguaSantiago Lomas Martínez, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain

Film Screening Cães Sem Coleira/ Dogs Without a LeashRosa Coutinho Cabral, 1997, 66 min, English subtitles.

Followed by a Q&A with the director.Cinemateca Portuguesa(see maps)

programme

DAY 3Friday, 27 September 2019

10.0011.15

11.1511.30

11.3012.00

12.0013.15

Keynote Speech (II)Small cinemas, global audiences? Reflections on minor cinema cultures in the digital age with a case study on young audiences in Belgium

Philippe Meers, University of Antwerp, Belgium

Auditório Sedas NunesChair: Filipa Rosário, CEC-ULisboa, Portugal

Presentation of ‘Kwartalnik Filmowy’ Karolina Kosińska, Institute of Art of Polish Academy of Sciences, PolandAuditório Sedas Nunes

Coffee Break

G1 - Take it Outside. Considering Travelling, Mobile, Pop-up, and Open Air CinemaAuditório Sedas NunesChair: Patrik Sjöberg, Karlstad University, Sweden

Cinema Al Fresco – the cultural history of open air cinemaPatrik Sjöberg, Karlstad University, Sweden

Light Leaks: Montreal as Mobile Cinematic SpaceAlanna Thain, McGill University, Canada

G2 (PT) - Descolonizando narrativas fílmicas e modos de produção entre periferias africanas e diásporas europeiasSala PolivalenteChair: Paulo Cunha, UBI, Portugal

Cinema menor: Cinema português negroMichelle Sales, UC, Portugal

Culturas cinematográficas africanas na era digitalPaulo Cunha, UBI, Portugal

Quem é Ventura? Espaços periféricos de Lisboa no Portugal Pós-ImperialMaria Inês Castro e Silva, University of Warwick, UK

participants instituional affiliations

Adina Bradeanu University of Oxford, UKAgata Frymus Ghent University, BelgiumAlanna Thain McGill University, CanadaAntía López Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, SpainBeatriz Zabalondo Loidi Universitat Politècnica de València, SpainBennet Schaber SUNY Oswego, USAChris LaLonde SUNY Oswego, USAChristopher Meir Universidad de Carlos III de Madrid, SpainDor Yaccobi Kibbutzim College, IsraelDorota Ostrowska Birkbeck, University of London, UKEcem Yildirim Concordia University, CanadaFarshad Zahedi Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, SpainFernando Redondo Neira Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, SpainFilipa Lowndes Vicente ICS-ULisboa, PortugalFrancesc Vilallonga Ramon Llull University, SpainGertjan Willems University of Antwerp/Ghent University, BelgiumGyörgy Kalmár University of Debrecen, HungaryImola Bülgözdi University of Debrecen, HungaryIván Villarmea Álvarez Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, SpainJosé Duarte CEAUL-ULisboa, PortugalJudith Clares Universitat Oberta de CatalunyaKarolina Ginalska University of Birmingham, UKKarolina Kosińska Institute of Art of Polish Academy of Sciences, PolandKonrad Klejsa University of Lodz, PolandLenuta Giukin SUNY Oswego, USALibertad Gills Universidad de las Artes, Ecuador / Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, SpainMaria Inês Castro e Silva University of Warwick, UKMaria Luna Uniminuto, Bogota, Colombia/ TecnoCampus ESUPT Universitat Pompeu Fabra, SpainMaria Soliña Barreiro ESUPT- Universitat Pompeu Fabra, SpainMarijo Deogracias Universitat Politècnica de València, SpainMarta Pérez Pereiro Universidad Santiago Compostela (USC), SpainMichael Gott University of Cincinnati, USAMichelle Sales University of Coimbra, PortugalMiguel Fernández Labayen Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, SpainNatália Fábics Media Institute of Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Media Budapest, HungaryOmri Yavin Kibbutzim College, IsraelPatrik Sjöberg Karlstad University, SwedenPatxi Azpillada Goenaga Universitat Politècnica de València, SpainPaulo Cunha University of Beira Interior, PortugalPedro Florêncio CEC-ULisboa, PortugalRenata Šukaitytė Faculty of Communication, Vilnius University, LithuaniaSantiago Lomas Martínez Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, SpainSezen Kayhan Koc University, TurkeySofia Sampaio CRIA-ISCTE-IUL, PortugalZebunnisa Hamid Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan

conference venue

Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa (ICS-ULisboa)Av. Prof. Aníbal Bettencourt 91600-189 LisboaMetro: Entrecampos (Yellow Line)

film screening

Cinemateca Portuguesa- Museu do CinemaR. Barata Salgueiro 391250-165 LisboaMetro: Avenida (Blue Line) or Marquês de Pombal (Blue Line/Yellow Line)

conference dinner

Noobai CafeMiradouro de Santa Catarina1200-399 LisboaMetro: Baixa-Chiado (Green Line and Blue Line)

M

M

M

M

M