Under Construction Seminar Series - Semester 1, 2009
Film and Television Studies presents a program of seminars and screenings on work in progress in film and TV research and production. For the first three sessions, we will be building up to the momentous B for BAD Cinema conference being held by FTV in April 15th-17th.
For the final sessions of this semester, we will focus on the topic Audiovisual Portraits of Self and Other:
Beyond the standard conventions and genres of documentary and fiction in audiovisual media, there are many paths: found-footage collage, essay-film, self-portrait, family portrait, speculative or imaginary life-stories … taking us far from the conventions, and into the explorations of experimental film, personal film, video art, digital diary, etc. The ‘portraits of self and other’ explored in this thematic thread of Under Construction in 2009 delve into some of these possibilities, ranging from the work of new Italian filmmaker Alina Marazzi, via the conceptual (and very funny) portrait-pieces of video artist Ka-Yin Kwok, to film/video texts about or inspired by the life and work of Sylvia Plath.
Dr Adrian Martin, Under Construction Convenor.- Semester 1 fortnightly
- Mondays 4pm to 6pm
- Room S704 in Building 11, Monash Clayton campus - see map at bottom of page
- March 2
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Dr Adrian Martin
Trash/Dumb/Slacker/Stoner Contemporary American Film Comedy (with a Gender Twist)
A short presentation and very rare Australian screening of Gregg Araki’s Smiley Face (2007), starring the immortal Anna Faris! (For an analysis of her unique performance style and career, see Zachary Campbell’s article in the March issue of Rouge.
- March 16
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Dr Con Verevis and Alexia Kannas present a B for BAD film screening
Death Laid an Egg - La Morte ha fatto l’uovo (Giulio Questi, 1968)
- March 30
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Michael Honig presents a B for BAD film screening
Visitor Q - Bijitâ Q (Takashi Miike, 2001)
Coming from the low budget world of Japan’s V-cinema a prime example of controversial film maker Takashi Miike’s tool of exaggeration. Disturbing, funny, heartwarming.
Warning: This film contains content and themes that may offend some viewers. Audience discretion is advised.
- May 4
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Dianne Daley
Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Making the Ordinary Extraordinary
In Europe, 2009 has been dubbed the ‘Year of Apichatpong’, with a series of new installation and film commissions, in addition to retrospectives and publications by and about the master contemporary Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The multi-platform project titled Primitive premieres at the renowned contemporary art museum and exhibition centre, Haus der Kunst, in Munich from February 20 – May 17. This presentation will discuss Apichatpong’s ability to make the ordinary extraordinary in his highly personal films. It will focus on (and include a screening of) his new short online film Phantoms of Nabua (2009), which coincides with the Primitive installation. In Phantoms of Nabua, the filmmaker pays homage to a fluorescent light in a swamp and teens kick a ball raging with fire, in what is his most political film to-date.
Dianne Daley is doing a PhD thesis on the films of Apichatpong in FTV Monash, and is a teacher at RMIT.
- May 18
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Dr Belinda Smaill
Subjectivity and Emotion in Documentary Film
In the past documentary has been popularly perceived in ways that align it with education, science, history and other ‘discourses of sobriety’. This frame has never been adequate for conceptualising the stylistic and thematic breadth of documentary culture. In part, documentary is compelling because it frames subjectivity in distinct ways. This paper proposes a refocusing of debates and a renewed methodology to deal with documentary. This methodology will account for how emotionality marries with the social project of documentary in ways that make the non-fiction genre a compelling site for perceiving how fantasies of self and other circulate through specific textual practices in the public sphere. This is an investigation into how individuals are positioned by documentary representation as subjects that are entrenched in the emotions, whether it is pleasure, hope, pain, empathy or disgust. I will draw on a number of salient examples but will pay particular attention to the Brazilian documentary, Bus 174 (2002).
Dr. Belinda Smaill works in the Film and Television Studies section of Monash University. Her book on issues of subjectivity and emotion in documentary film will appear by the end of the year.
- May 25
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Professor Phillippe Met
Films That Never Were – Films That Could Never Be? Towards a Theory of Ghost Cinema
Despite a plethora of world encyclopedias of film and dictionaries of national cinemas, one particular history or archaeology of cinematic art remains to be told or written – that of the non-films or off-films which have literally filled filmic annals almost since the invention of the medium and make up what I propose to call ‘ghost cinema’. Films that never came to completion or fruition, films that were inherently or constitutively unfilmable, elusive films that haunt us as film enthusiasts, abortive films that go on to covertly inspire and fertilise the latter opuses of their unsuccessful originators. I will look at specific instances and possible paradigms (French and non-French, filmic and literary) in an effort to delineate this unchartered territory and examine the mythical, fetishistic aura that these mirage-films tend to acquire over time.
Professor Philippe Met is Visiting Fellow from the University of Pennsylvania, at University of Melbourne. He has written extensively on literature and cinema, and is Editor of the French Forum.
- June 1
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Phillippa Hawker (The Age film critic)
Text and Image: Sylvia Plath and Cinema
This presentation will offer an account of ongoing work concerning the multiple, complex relationships between the life and work of writer Sylvia Plath, and various forms of cinema: biographical, narrative, experimental. Some rare films and videos will be screened.
Philippa Hawker is film critic for The Age, has taught Arts at the University of Melbourne, and is completing her PhD there on Sylvia Plath. She has been the editor of Cinema Papers, and Co-Editor of Actor: Leslie Cheung (ACMI, 2003). Her work on Plath was been presented at conferences both in Australia and abroad.
How to Get There
The venue is room S704, on the South wing of the 7th floor of the Menzies Building on Monash University's Clayton campus.
Navigate using the interactive map below, or download Clayton campus map in PDF format.