Conference organised by the
Africa Media Centre, University of Westminster


Date: Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 November 2012 - 9.00am to 6.00pm

Venue
University of Westminster, Regent Campus, 309 Regent Street, London, W1B 2UW

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

Tsitsi Dangarembga is an award-winning Filmmaker and Novelist. Her filmography includes Everyone's Child, 1996 and Kare Kare Zvako, (short), 2004. She is currently Director of the Institute of Creative Arts for Progress in Africa (ICAPA, www.icapatrust.org) Trust (incorporating Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe and Nyerai Films: http://www.facebook.com/WomenFilmmakersOfZimbabwe) and Founder of the International Images Film Festival for Women (IIFF): http://www.facebook.com/BreakingTheSilenceAZimbabweProject

Jean-Marie Teno, Africa's preeminent documentary filmmaker, has been producing and directing films on the colonial and post-colonial history of Africa for over twenty years. Films by Jean-Marie Teno have been honored at festivals worldwide. In the U.S., many of his films including Africa, je te plumerai; A Trip to the Country; Clando; Chief!; Alex's Wedding; and The Colonial Misunderstanding, have been broadcast and featured at festivals across the country. Teno has been a guest of the Flaherty Seminar, an artist in residence at the Pacific Film Archive of the University of California, Berkeley, and has lectured at numerous universities. Most recently, he was a visiting artist at Amherst College as a 2007-2008 Copeland Fellow. www.jmteno.us/

Professor Rod Stoneman is the Director of the Huston School of Film & Digital Media at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He was Chief Executive of Bord Scannán na hÉireann / the Irish Film Board until September 2003 and previously a Deputy Commissioning Editor in the Independent Film and Video Department at Channel 4 Television in the United Kingdom. In this role he commissioned and bought and provided production finance for over 50 African feature films. His 1993 article'African Cinema: Addressee Unknown', has been published in 6 journals and 3 books. He has made a number of documentaries, including Ireland: The Silent Voices, Italy: the Image Business, 12,000 Years of Blindness and The Spindle, and has written extensively on film and television. He is the author of Chávez: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised; A Case Study of Politics and the Media; Seeing is Believing: The Politics of the Visual will be published in February 2013.

Background to the conference:
This year's conference has attracted 60 speakers from Britain, Africa, Europe, Asia and America who will debate the evolving African film cultures in terms of production, distribution and consumption in and outside Africa. One of the interesting points to be discussed is how the annual FESPACO festivals in Burkina Faso have encouraged a type of production that is largely admired by Europeans, but which is rarely available to, or appreciated widely by audiences in those productions' countries of origin. Equally important is how the digital economy, especially the internet, has opened up huge opportunities for the wider distribution of African film. Topics to be covered will include the following themes:

- Production cultures and circulation of film;

- History, myth and identity in African film;

- The representation of African cultures in film;

- Audiences, reception and sites of spectatorship;

- Indigenous language films and the problems of subtitles and illiteracy.

- Morality and spirituality in African cinema;

- Exhibition, financing and distribution of African film;

- Cinema and digital technologies;

- Film festivals and the development of national cinemas in Africa;

- Revenue, business models and piracy

- Auteur, film genres and form

- Collaborative filmmaking in the global north/trans-national collaborations

- African film philosophy

- The image, sound, written and spoken word in filmic narratives

- Institutions, policies and film agencies


REGISTRATION

Conference Fees
This two-day conference will take place on Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 November 2012. The fee for registration (which applies to all participants, including presenters) is:

Standard: £140 (One day costs £100)
Students: £60 (One day costs £45)

Fees cover conference material, lunches, coffee/teas, wine reception and administration costs.

To register please go to
http://www.westminster.ac.uk/research/a-z/camri/events/camri-events-calendar/2012/evolving-african-film-cultures-local-and-global-experiences-conference

and download the registration form and submit to Helen Cohen H.Cohen02@westminster.ac.uk

General Enquires
Winston Mano W.Mano@westminster.ac.uk
Jane Thorburn J.Thorburn@westminster.ac.uk