Last modified: Thursday, September 6, 2007
IU’s Department of Communication and Culture hosting major film conference Sept. 14-16
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sept. 6, 2007
BLOOMINGTON, Ind -- The inaugural Film Indiana conference, "Screening Shorts," at Indiana University Bloomington next weekend (Sept. 14-16) will showcase the university's film archives and cinema-related collections
Most notable among IU's cinematic holdings are those in its Bradley Collection, at the Kinsey Institute, and an extraordinary collection of instructional and educational films. The conference will focus on short films produced within and beyond the Hollywood tradition. All screenings are free and open to the public.
Organized and sponsored by the IU Department of Communication and Culture, Film Indiana will combine screenings of films from IU collections, keynote lectures by scholars, refereed research presentations and workshops -- all connected to a central theme.
Among the speakers will be Tom Gunning, the Edwin A. and Betty L. Bergman Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago and author of D.W. Griffith and the Origins of American Narrative Film (University of Illinois Press, 1991); and Haidee Wasson, director of the graduate film studies program at Concordia University and author of Museum Movies: The Museum of Modern Art and the Birth of Art Cinema (University of California Press, 2005). Museum Movies was named the outstanding academic title by the American Library Association.
"We seek to make important material from IU collections available for study and thereby help to open up new directions in film and media studies," said Gregory Waller, professor and chair of the Department of Communications and Culture. "The conference should prove to be a valuable resource for faculty and graduate students both at Indiana University and across the region and the nation, a way to celebrate the vitality of film studies and to encourage the next generation of scholars as the movies move into their second century."
The conference will include several major screenings, including:
- "Historical Erotica from the Kinsey Institute Archives," from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, Sept. 14 in the Fine Arts Auditorium (room 015), 1201 E. Seventh St. Co-hosted by The Ryder magazine, rarely seen films from the Kinsey Institute will be screened along with several early educational films related to sexuality and gender.
- "Hollywood in Brief: Short Films from the David S. Bradley Collection," from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in Whittenberger Auditorium of the Indiana Memorial Union, 900 E. Seventh St. Screened will be many hidden gems from the Bradley collection at IU, including trailers, promotional shorts about the film industry, fiction films currently not in distribution and rarely-seen works by women directors.
- "Making the World a Better Place One 16mm Reel at a Time: Vintage Films from IU's Instructional Film Collection," starting at 8 p.m. at the Buskirk-Chumley Theatre, 114 E. Kirkwood Ave. This event will focus on instructional and educational films discussing topics such as teaching gender, monitoring sexuality, appreciating "friends" around the world and managing problems in the workplace.
The conference will also feature a talk on Friday about director Stanley Kubrick by James Naremore, IU professor emeritus of English and communication and culture. Other discussion topics will include UFO films, avant-garde cinema, childbirth films, early U.S. army instructional productions, Shirley Temple, Weimar Police films and Walt Disney's 1942 movie, "Saludos Amigos."
To attend, contact the conference registrar at: iuconfs@indiana.edu , 812-855-2367 or 800-933-9330. Also, for more information about Film Indiana, contact Jason Sperb at jsperb@indiana.edu or visit https://www.indiana.edu/~filmindi/.
