CFP: Artists, Amateurs, Alternative Spaces: Experimental Cinema in Eastern Europe, 1960-1990

[Ksenya Gurshtein]

Dear SEELANGSers,

Below please find a CFP for a special issue of Studies in Eastern European
Cinema on the topic *“Artists, Amateurs, Alternative Spaces: Experimental
Cinema in Eastern Europe, 1960–1990,” a special issue of **Studies in
Eastern European Cinema*<http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/reec20#.U1VF8IW5D2g>

*(Spring 2016)*

Guest editors: Joanna Raczynska and Ksenya Gurshtein, National Gallery of
Art, Washington; Sonja Simonyi, New York University

*Submission deadlines: *Those interested in writing a 6,000-7,000 word
article should submit a proposal by *July 15, 2014 *consisting of a title
and a 300-500 word abstract, along with the author's (or authors’) bio(s)
or CV(s). Submissions should be sent to ecee.special.issue at gmail.com
Authors will be notified in mid-August 2014; the deadline for completed
manuscripts is *January 15, 2015*.

 Today, there exists a substantial and growing body of literature on the
history and significance of the feature films, both fiction and, to a
lesser extent, documentary, that were produced in former Eastern Europe in
the socialist era. Seen largely through the lens of national film schools,
the cinematic “waves” that emerged forcefully in the 1950s, 1960s and
beyond (such as the Polish School, Czech New Wave, and Yugoslav Black Wave)
have received considerable attention, as have the oeuvres of many
individual auteurs.

What has received much less consideration is the history of the various
forms of experimental and alternative cinema that also existed and at times
even thrived throughout the region prior to 1989. Often seen in art
historical rather than film studies contexts, films made by amateurs (such
as those who participated in the extensive networks of amateur film clubs
in Poland and the former Yugoslavia) and visual artists (the OHO group in
Slovenia; Ion Grigorescu and Geta Bratescu in Romania; Tibor Hajas, Tamás
St. Auby, and Dora Maurer in Hungary; and the KwieKulik Group in Poland,
among many others) are rarely discussed as part of larger national or
international film cultures in the region. Similarly, films by
professionals who found ways to make highly experimental work at
state-funded studios (such as the Béla Balázs Studio in Hungary, Neoplanta
Studio in Serbia, or the Riga Film Studio in the former USSR) and film
schools (such as the *Łódź* Film School and its Workshop of the Film Form)
await further consideration, especially in a transnational context.

In the spring of 2014, the Department of Film Programs at the National
Gallery of Art is hosting a series of screenings titled “Artists, Amateurs,
Alternative Spaces: Experimental Cinema in Eastern Europe, 1960–1990,”
which through a combination of thematic and country-specific programs aims
to begin mapping the full of range of experimental filmmaking in the
region, from the work of such acknowledged masters as Dušan Makavejev to
films that have rarely been screened in public fora, such as the work of
the Serbian amateur Ljubomir Šimunić.

As an academic counterpart of this project, the special issue of *Studies
in Eastern European Cinema* seeks scholarly contributions that expand our
knowledge of experimental film production in the former Eastern Bloc, which
we define broadly to include all of the Warsaw Pact countries (including
the former USSR), as well as former Yugoslavia. The films to which we seek
to give greater visibility are those that straddle the worlds of
professional and amateur filmmaking and those that transgress
classificatory boundaries, being neither purely fictional narratives nor
traditional documentaries. Of particular interest are studies that shed
light on films and filmmakers who conducted formal artistic explorations of
the medium, often while also pursuing other aesthetic or political goals.
What is the significance of such films within the larger cultural landscape
of post-war, socialist Eastern Europe? And how does a history of the
region’s cinema that incorporates artists, amateurs, and the creative
output of ‘alternative spaces’ look differently from the one we know today?



*Suggested topics to be explored in this special issue may include, but are
not be limited to:*

- Studies of artistic schools, national schools, or individual filmmakers
who created significant experimental or avant-garde oeuvres, including
experimental animation

- Histories of studios, film schools, art schools, festivals and other
official, state-funded entities that supported experimental filmmaking at
the local, national, or regional level

- Connections and relationships between official and unofficial modes of
production and distribution, with amateur film clubs as a subject
particularly ripe for in-depth study and theorization

- The impact of available technological and other resources on the
aesthetic choices of both professional and non-professional experimental
filmmakers

- Histories of exchange both within individual countries and
internationally and both on the level of official structures and
individuals that shed light on networks of mutual support and influence
among experimental filmmakers

- Connections and relationships between the work of experimental filmmakers
and celebrated auteurs

- Questions of periodization of experimental filmmaking in either
individual countries or across the region, particularly as they relate in
the context of political “thaws” and “freezes” and changes in cultural
policy

- Interaction between popular cinemas (both domestic and foreign) and
experimental filmmaking

- Relationship of experimental cinema in Eastern Europe to other genres;
the utility of “experimental” as a genre designation, particularly in the
Eastern European historical context

- Shared themes, stories, leitmotifs, and aesthetic strategies that
possibly define a regional film language; themes, stories, and motifs
particular to certain countries and possible reasons for such particularity

- The role of censorship in shaping experimental filmmaking in Eastern
Europe


-- 
Ksenya Gurshtein
Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow
Department of Photographs
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Phone: (202) 789-3054 (work); (347) 567-8425 (home)
Fax: (202) 789-4620
ksenya at gmail.com

"Art is what makes life more interesting than art."
--- Robert Filliou

"What is true for writing and for a love relationship is true also for
life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don't know what will be the end."
--- Michel Foucault

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