Centre for Film Studies
Founded in 2005, the Centre for Film Studies aims to reflect and promote the research of colleagues and postgraduates in the department whilst also embracing the work in film across the University, producing a site for vibrant interdisciplinary exchange. We combine cutting edge scholarly activities with events facilitating cultural engagement.
Reflecting the vibrancy of our staff, the Centre organises conferences, workshops, film festivals, screenings with visiting directors as well as fortnightly research seminars with guest speakers from national and international locations.
The Centre is characterised by research into film cultures around the world. We begin with the work on screen, taking into account aesthetics, representations, and identity and move beyond to study the cultures of cinephilia, knowledge-production, preservation, politics, industry, exhibition and beyond. We study the work of film, media and their materials in the world as much as those objects themselves.
We also publish a student-led journal, an annual report and a semi-annual newsletter to share this work.
Our work falls into but is hardly limited by two primary intersecting areas.
The Dynamics of Transnational Film Circulation
The Centre is the world’s leading hub for research into film festivals. This research activity, spearheaded by Professor Dina Iordanova, encompasses various projects and events. Projects include the Royal Society of Edinburgh-funded Scottish Film Festival Studies Network (2011-2013), and the Carnegie Trust-funded project Scottish Consortium for Film and Visual Studies (2007-2012).
In addition, we established a publishing house, St Andrews Films Studies in 2007, which is responsible for the annual Film Festival Yearbooks and a series of monographs, entitled Films Need Festivals, Festivals Need Films.
The work of Professor Iordanova continues in the Institute of Global Cinema and Creative Cultures.
The Work and Workers of Film and Media
Beyond film festival research, which takes into account the many players in film and media worlds as much as their work in producing film culture, other areas of inquiry equally take on questions of what films do as well as who ‘does’ the film. Such inquiries embrace a host of questions from the contributions of unseen labourers (sound and design) and those most seen (stars) to historical films on cultural memory and contemporary perception, the influence of documentary (whether on social change or regulation) and useful cinemas on expertise and understandings of science. And all of us share an enthusiasm for film ephemera, the extra textual materials that contribute to the work of film.
We publish an annual report and a twice-yearly newsletter, detailing our various activities and their impact. [Please email filmstudies@st-andrews.ac.uk if you would like to receive our newsletter.]