Centre for Film Studies
Director: Dr David Martin-Jones
Annual Report
The annual report provides full details of the Centre for Film Studies' activities and the publications of its members over the course of the year.
About the Centre for Film Studies
The Centre for Film Studies, which embraces colleagues from across the University, was established in 2005 to encourage interdisciplinary research. With an international advisory board composed on leading academics and industry professionals, the Centre organises screenings with visiting filmmakers as well as regular fortnightly research seminar where guest speakers and St. Andrews-based academics present their current research for discussion. These events attract students—undergraduate and postgraduate—from other Schools throughout the University.
Our events provide a mixture of screenings and scholarly discussions. We have hosted famed Soviet filmmaker, Aleksandr Askoldov (Kommisar), the darkly comic Spanish filmmaker Alex de la Iglesia (La Communidad), documentary activist filmmaker Nick Higgins (A Massacre Foretold) as well as stimulating presentations from Prof. Ginette Vincendeau (King’s College, London), Prof. Gill Plain (University of St Andrews), and Prof. Ib Bondebjerg (University of Copenhagen).
Research Activity
Cinema and Cultural Engagement
In academic year 2007-2008, with the generous support of the Russell Trust and the cooperationof the New Picture House Cinema, the Centre was able to bring screenings of art-house films to St Andrews. These included: Bamako (Abderrahmane Sissako, 2007);The Yes Men (Dan Olman, Sarah Price, and Chris Smith, 2003); Three Times (Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 2005); Daratt (Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, 2006); and Army of Shadows (Jean-Pierre Melville,1969). With our slate we were able to offer a rare theatrical screening of Southland Tales (Richard Kelly, 2007) and continue Britain's exposure to contemporary Romanian films with 12:08 East of Bucharest (Corneliu Porumboiu, 2006).
Click here for a complete listing of events, past and present.
Conferences, Workshops and Lectures
Members of the Centre are involved in research collaborations with academics in the UK, USA, Denmark, Canada, France, Austria, Turkey, Spain, Italy, and other countries and have attracted funding from various organisations, such as the AHRC, the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland and the British Academy.
Click here for news of our research activity.
In addition to guest speakers, filmmakers, and screenings, the Centre holds conferences and study days that enhance the research environment of the University.
In June 2006 the Centre hosted a major international inaugural conference, Cinema at the Periphery, which featured speakers from around the world and which welcomed an enthusiastic academic audience. Video of the presentations is available to St Andrews staff and students in their entirety. Clips of the presentations are available for viewing for those outside the institution. Papers presented at this conference appeared in a collection of the same name published by Wayne State University Press and co-edited by Prof. Dina Iordanova, Dr David Martin-Jones, and Dr Belén Vidal.
In March 2007, with the partnership of the Department of Social Anthropology and the British Academy, the Centre hosted the third interdisciplinary workshop in the British Academy Series on The European Roma: Theorising Marginality, Resistance and Integration entitled Representation and Effect: The Roma in Politics, Art and the Academy (23-25 March). The papers presented at this workshop will be published in a special issue of Third Text co-edited by Prof. Dina Iordanova and Dr Paloma Gay Y Blasco.
In May 2007 the Centre for Film Studies hosted an Indian Cinema Study Day, featuring speakers Prof. Rosie Thomas (University of Westminster), Dr Chandrika Kaul (History, University of St Andrews) and the Department’s own Prof. Dina Iordanova, Dr David Martin-Jones, and Dr Elisabetta Girelli. The event received coverage in the Indian press.
Each subsequent year has seen a range of activities and events organised by the Centre for Film Studies, including several externally funded workshops and conferences featuring high-profile film scholars, critics and industry professionals, along with our annual postgraduate study days, workshops and conferences. In recent years there has been a great deal of activity centred on Film Festivals and the archaeology of the local history of film culture in St Andrews and the surrounding area.
The Centre publishes a bi-annual newsletter that will soon be available online, regularly updated throughout the year. Please email us your contact information if you’d like to receive our newsletter.
Dynamics of World Cinema: Transnational Channels of Global Film Distribution
Leverhulme Trust –sponsored project (2008-2011)
In July 2008, Professor Dina Iordanova was awarded generous funding by the Leverhulme Trust, one of the most prestigious and largest research funding bodies in the UK, to conduct investigation into the global distribution of World Cinema.
Entitled 'Dynamics of World Cinema: Transnational Channels of Global Film Distribution', the study, which will run in the period 2008-2011, aims to examine the cycles of four distinctly active circuits of contemporary film distribution, and the dynamic pattern of complex interaction between them.
Management Committee
- Mr. Bernard Bentley (Spanish)
- Prof. Robert Burgoyne (Film Studies)
- Prof. Berys Gaut (Philosophy)
- Prof. Christopher Hawkesworth (Deputy Principal & Vice-Principal for Research)
- Prof. Dina Iordanova (Film Studies)
- Dr. David Martin-Jones
- Prof. Gill Plain (English)
International advisory board
- Mr. Yoram Allon (Wallflower Press, London, UK)
- Prof. Dudley Andrew, Yale University, USA,
- Ms. Irene Bignardi (Locarno International Film Festival, Switzerland/Italy)
- Prof. John Caughie (University of Glasgow, UK)
- Prof. Ian Christie (Birkbeck College, UK)
- Prof. Pam Cook (University of Southampton, UK)
- Mr. Mark Cousins (film critic and producer, Edinburgh)
- Prof. Stuart Cunningham (QIT, Brisbane, Australia)
- Prof. Richard Dyer (King's College, London)
- Prof. Peter Evans (Queen Mary University of London, UK)
- Prof. Mette Hjort, (Lingnan University, Hong Kong)
- Prof. Thomas Elsaesser (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
- Prof. Laura U. Marks (Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada)
- Prof. Toby Miller (University of California-Riverside, USA)
- Prof. Hamid Naficy (Northwestern University, USA)
- Prof. Lucia Nagib (University of Leeds, UK)
- Prof. Duncan Petrie (University of Auckland, New Zealand)
- Prof. Eric Rentschler (Harvard University, USA)
- Prof. Robert Rosenstone (California Institute of Technology, USA)
- Prof. Ginette Vincendeau (King’s College, London)
Contact
Centre for Film Studies
University of St Andrews
99 North Street
St Andrews, Fife
KY16 9AD
Scotland, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 1334 467 473
Fax: +44 (0) 1334 467 464
Email: Centre for Film Studies