[ecrea] CFP: Manoel de Oliveira: A Poetics of Dissent

  Call for Papers

*Manoel de Oliveira: A Poetics of Dissent**
**Research Centre for Communication and Culture – Universidade Católica
Portuguesa
*

*Lisbon, 7-8 April 2016*

*Deadline for paper proposals: November 15 2015*

Manoel de Oliveira’s life and work merged with the history of cinema
from 1931 when /Douro, Faina Fluvial [Labour on the Douro River]/ was
first exhibited until April 2, 2015, when he died. Considered for many
years as the oldest filmmaker in activity (Oliveira’s last film /O Velho
do Restelo [The Old Man of Belém]/ dates from 2014 when he was 105),
Oliveira’s filmography is definitely marked by novelty and esthetic
dissent.

Internationally acclaimed, Oliveira’s filmography is unique and
distinctive, since, both within the frameworks of international and
Portuguese film, it cannot be considered as belonging to a specific
cinematic movement/trend and to a particular category. By excelling both
in the domain of documentary and fiction or by subtly and skillfully
merging both, by making film enter in dialogue with the literary text,
Oliveira’s production from the very beginning interrogates what cinema
is and what the cinematic language searches for as if his whole work
were an attempt to provide an answer to this concern. Besides this
crucial ontological interrogation, his filmography reveals a particular
/ethos/ that can be analyzed from a universal and a national
perspective, since his compromise with unveiling and dissecting the
ambiguities and contradictions of the human soul inevitably leads
spectators to question individual and collective identities.

Wishing to pay tribute to the filmmaker when the first year of his death
is celebrated, this international conference seeks to analyze the
various cycles of Oliveira’s work by examining how and to what extent
his cinematography can be considered adversarial, and how it configures
a poetics of dissent by addressing, among others, the following issues:

. Oliveira and film criticism
. Oliveira’s work or the cinema of non-illusion
. Oliveira and the word as an esthetic object
. Oliveira and the use of irony
. The role of music in Oliveira’s cinema
. Faith and reason or the religious dimension of Oliveira’s filmography
. Death as a leitmotif in Oliveira
. Oliveira, cinema and theatre
. The mystery of time in Oliveira
. Oliveira and the narratives of frustrated passion
. Oliveira between film and literature
. Oliveira’s films and gender roles
. Oliveira and the construction of Portugal on the screen
. Oliveira’s role in Portuguese and international filmmaking


The Conference’s working languages are Portuguese and English.


*Keynote Speakers*

- Randal Johnson (UCLA)

- Jacques Lemière (Université de Lille)

- António Preto (Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro)


*Screening*

A screening of Manoel de Oliveira’s posthumous film, /Visita ou Memórias
e Confissões, /will be screened at the Portuguese Cinematheque on April
8. It will be followed by a debate with several guests.

*Paper proposals*

Please send the Organizing Committee 300-word abstracts for 20-minute
papers, as well as a brief biographical note (circa 100 words), to
(oliveirapoetics /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(oliveirapoetics /at/ gmail.com)> by November
15, 2015. Proposals should list paper title, name, institutional
affiliation, and contact details.
Notification of acceptance will be given by December 13, 2015.

Should you have any queries feel free to write us to
(oliveirapoetics /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(oliveirapoetics /at/ gmail.com)>. For more
information see https://oliveiraconference2016.wordpress.com/.

*Organizing Committee*

Adriana Martins

Maria do Rosário Lupi Bello

Daniela Agostinho

Miguel-Pedro Quadrio

Tiago Baptista

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