[ecrea] cfp: Symposium on Arctic Cinema

A Call for Papers opportunity have come up, which may be of interest to 
any of those interested in cinema of Nordic expression.

The first symposium on Arctic Cinema will be held at NTNU in Trondheim, 
Norway, between the 21st and 22nd of November. The event is being 
organised by Luis Rocha Antunes and Emma Vestrheim. Cinema Scandinavia 
(http://www.cinemascandinavia.com) is a sponsor and attendee to the 
event. Cinema Scandinavia will be printing a special magazine in 
December with papers from the symposium.

You can find a brief overview of the symposium below, or click here to 
find out more: http://luisantunes4.wix.com/arctic-cinema

We encourage everyone to submit a paper and come along to the event, 
especially if you are currently doing research on Nordic film and 
television. Anna Westerståhl Stenport and Scott MacKenzie are the 
keynote speakers for the event–and the original proponents of the 
concept of Arctic Cinema.

If you have any questions about either CFP, please contact me at 
(luis.antunes /at/ ntnu.no) or Emma at (cinemascandinavia /at/ gmail.com)

(CfP below)

Kind regards,
Emma Vestrheim and Luis Rocha Antunes


Film and literature scholars Anna Westerståhl Stenport (University of 
Illinois, USA) and Scott MacKenzie (Queen’s University, Canada) have 
recently authored and edited several publications where they bring forth 
an innovative and original concept of Arctic Cinema. In their work, they 
trace the historical context of Arctic Cinema and map down different 
cinematic approaches with the unifying element of the Arctic. Especially 
in their edited volumes entitled Films on Ice: Cinemas of the Arctic 
(Edinburgh University Press, 2014) and Arctic Environmental Modernities: 
From the Age of Polar Exploration to the Era of the Anthropocene 
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2016; Lill-Ann Körber, Scott MacKenzie & Anna W. 
Stenport, eds. ), but also in their co-authored chapter entitled “All 
That’s Frozen Melts Into Air – Arctic Cinemas at the End of the World”, 
the two scholars reveal fascinating connections between Nordic film and 
how the ecology of the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions have found 
expression in cinema through periods of history such as the Cold War 
period and also how the so called Arctic Cinema constitutes a cinematic 
imprint of the geography, climate and culture of the Nordic regions 
associated with Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Greenland.

This two-day symposium seeks to take advantage of this extremely timely 
topic of research. Our goal is to gather scholars with research 
interests connected to Nordic forms of cinema with the aim of promoting 
a discussion and presenting this idea of Arctic Cinema in relation to an 
ecologic ethnography of the Nordic regions. The Arctic has recently been 
subject of interest within scientific fields. It has not received the 
same degree of attention from film studies. This is, however, changing, 
as the works mentioned above show, and we believe it is imperative to 
include film studies in the academic discussions leading to a deeper 
understanding of the Arctic, since it is our conviction that film has a 
potential to make use of its aesthetic and experiential qualities to 
trace the identity of the Arctic in angles that can appeal to film 
scholars, anthropologists, literature scholars and other fields of 
cultural studies.

The Department of Art and Media Studies (Institutt for kunst- og 
medievitenskap) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology 
(NTNU) and Cinema Scandinavia invite proposals for presentations at its 
forthcoming two-day symposium on Arctic Cinema, to be held between the 
21st and 22nd of November 2016 at The Faculty of Humanities, Trondheim, 
Norway.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Please send us your proposals to (luis.antunes /at/ ntnu.no) and 
(emma /at/ cinemascandinavia.com), including the following details:

1. Name, institutional affiliation, and email address
2. Title and abstract, with at least three literature references
3. Brief biographical statement.

Please note: The deadline for proposals is midnight (GMT) 31st June, 
2016. Please visit website for more details and information.

SYMPOSIUM DESCRIPTION

Film and literature scholars Anna Westerståhl Stenport (University of 
Illinois, USA) and Scott MacKenzie (Queen’s University, Canada) have 
recently authored and edited several publications where they bring forth 
an innovative and original concept of Arctic Cinema. In their work, they 
trace the historical context of Arctic Cinema and map down different 
cinematic approaches with the unifying element of the Arctic. Especially 
in their edited volumes entitled Films on Ice: Cinemas of the Arctic 
(Edinburgh University Press, 2014) and Arctic Environmental Modernities: 
From the Age of Polar Exploration to the Era of the Anthropocene 
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2016; Lill-Ann Körber, Scott MacKenzie & Anna W. 
Stenport, eds. ), but also in their co-authored chapter entitled “All 
That’s Frozen Melts Into Air – Arctic Cinemas at the End of the World”, 
the two scholars reveal fascinating connections between Nordic film and 
how the ecology of the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions have found 
expression in cinema through periods of history such as the Cold War 
period and also how the so called Arctic Cinema constitutes a cinematic 
imprint of the geography, climate and culture of the Nordic regions 
associated with Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Greenland.

This two-day symposium seeks to take advantage of this extremely timely 
topic of research. Our goal is to gather scholars with research 
interests connected to Nordic forms of cinema with the aim of promoting 
a discussion and presenting this idea of Arctic Cinema in relation to an 
ecologic ethnography of the Nordic regions. The Arctic has recently been 
subject of interest within scientific fields. It has not received the 
same degree of attention from film studies. This is, however, changing, 
as the works mentioned above show, and we believe it is imperative to 
include film studies in the academic discussions leading to a deeper 
understanding of the Arctic, since it is our conviction that film has a 
potential to make use of its aesthetic and experiential qualities to 
trace the identity of the Arctic in angles that can appeal to film 
scholars, anthropologists, literature scholars and other fields of 
cultural studies.

Taking on Stenport and MacKenzie’s work, we could say that Arctic Cinema 
gives expression to an eco-ethnography that represents, through 
different film genres and modes, how local and regional cultures but 
also geography and climate have been depicted by film and translated 
into film aesthetics. Some directors, such as Jan Troell and Knut Erik 
Jensen, have revealed the Arctic in captivating new ways, showing that 
the Arctic is not about snow and ice alone but about how local cultures 
relate to those sensory elements. Moreover, the Arctic has a history 
that is not exclusively environmental but is cultural and ethnographic 
too. There are numerous aspects why Arctic Cinema is such a strong and 
emergent line of research on the fields of film and ethnographic 
studies. The main reason is that it results from a confluence of 
elements that function in two ways. One one hand, the Arctic Cinema 
serves as an ethnographic investigation of its local communities. One 
the other hand, it projects those cultural and ethnographic elements 
onto a global context. Film is a privileged medium to record many of the 
experiential aspects of the Arctic and it is through the authorial 
language of some of the directors from the Arctic Cinema that those 
experiential aspects find a global projection and reach audiences that 
may never have been acquainted with the Arctic but are nevertheless 
exposed to it in its cinematic form.

Due to the privileged geographical position that NTNU, as an 
institution, occupies within the Nordic context, we have managed to 
establish a number of contacts and expand a considerable network with 
scholars that have been dealing with films made above the Arctic circle. 
We believe this event will be an opportunity to bring them together and 
have them share ideas so that new and stimulating projects may 
potentially arise from this event, such as the publication of a special 
journal issue at Cinema Scandinavia. One of those opportunities is the 
pursuit of further publications within the topic, where the ethnographic 
and cultural details of the Arctic Cinema can be sketched down in deeper 
and more thorough ways. We are hoping to have one guest speaker from 
each of the Nordic regions of Iceland, Norway, Greenland, Finland and 
Sweden. Keynote speakers Anna Stenport and Scott MacKenzie have their 
presence confirmed in the symposium.

Luis Rocha Antunes
University of Kent 
(https://www.kent.ac.uk/arts/research/researchstudentprofiles/rocha-antunes.html) 
and Norwegian University of Science and Technology 
(http://www.ntnu.edu/employees/luis.antunes)
Film Studies and Aesthetics
Cultural Reviews Editor for Limina Journal: 
http://www.limina.arts.uwa.edu.au
(+351) 915 287 725
Author of The Multisensory Film Experience: A Cognitive Model of 
Experiential Film Aesthetics: 
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/M/bo23680188.html



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