Inter-disciplinary Perspectives on Russia and Cinema

Queen Mary, University of London UK, Saturday 10th May 2008

Abstracts for papers are requested on the theme of images of Russianness in any area of Film Studies, including those working across disciplines, for example in comparative literature, music, history and gender studies. As Andrei Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood won the 1962 Golden Lion in Venice, From Russia with Love was filling the cinemas of the Western world. While Russian films have won a total of four Oscars in the history of the award, David Lean’s 1965 Doctor Zhivago alone won five, and Warren Beatty’s Reds three. Although in the hundred years of its existence, from the silent days onwards Russia has had a distinct and innovative cinema, foreign audiences have received their most influential images of Russia and ‘Russianness’ from Hollywood through non-Russian actors. The purpose of this conference is to explore the tensions between Russian cinema’s own explorations of identity and more popularly consumed representations of Russians and ‘Russianness’ in Western cinema.

Possible subjects for papers include:

Russian History on Screen
Russian Literature on Screen
Reception of Russian Film Abroad
Images of Russian masculinity and femininity
Russian filmmakers and filmmakingRepresentation of Crime, violence and the Mafia
Russian Music and Dance in Film
Depictions of Religion and religiosity

The conference will be introduced by Dr Jeremy Hicks, QMUL, author of Dziga Vertov: Defining Documentary Film.

The keynote speakers will be Professor James Chapman of the University of Leicester (author of Licence To Thrill: A Cultural History of the James Bond Films) and Professor Julian Graffy of SEES-UCL, prominent historian of Russian cinema.

Abstracts (maximum 250 words) should be emailed to russiaonscreen@hotmail.co.uk

to arrive by January 1st 2008.

For further details, please contact: Lucy Bolton and Miranda Shaw (Queen Mary, University of London),

at russiaonscreen@hotmail.co.uk