[Commlist] Senses of Cinema: Call for Contributions

Call for Contributions: After Yugoslavia

https://www.sensesofcinema.com/call-for-submissions/ 
<https://www.sensesofcinema.com/call-for-submissions/>

Senses of Cinema is inviting proposals for a dossier on nonfiction film 
in the territories of former Yugoslavia, scheduled for publication this 
October in Issue 103. Avenues of inquiry could include, but are not 
exclusive to: aesthetics and representation (war trauma, positionality, 
and the ethics of looking), the dynamics of state and international 
financing or distribution (from festivals to networked platforms and 
beyond), problems surrounding historicisation (the place of 
post-Yugoslav film within histories of world cinema and of Eastern 
Europe in particular), as well as debates around truth, social memory, 
and alternative facts.

Three decades after the dismantling of Yugoslavia, a pressing question 
has resurfaced. At a time when new nationalisms are again on the horizon 
(or already firmly ensconced in power), what tactics do documentary 
cineastes employ in an effort to fight back? Against the equivocations 
of historical revisionism, how might nonfiction be energised in a 
struggle for justice, emancipation, and equality? With what formal means 
are artists and film workers tethering themselves to an aesthetic of 
truth? And why, most pointedly, are some of the most electrifying 
endeavors in this respect coming from the ex-socialist Balkans? 
Filmmakers such as Nika Autor, Selma Doborac, Ognjen Glavonić, Jelena 
Maksimović, and Želimir Žilnik have all intervened into this narrative 
in important ways; observational images, cinéma vérité, newsreel 
reporting, re-enactment, essayism, and (unscripted) fictionalisation are 
only a few forms and formats that post-1991 documentarists in the region 
are activating with force.

In an area where ideological mystification has never relinquished its 
deadly grip, documentary images play a privileged role, tasked and 
entrusted as they are with offering adequate, just depictions of our 
world. It is the hypothesis of this dossier that the spaces of former 
Yugoslavia (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, 
Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia) offer fertile ground for 21st-century 
cinema studies. Precisely due to their experiences with virulent 
ethnonationalism and an assortment of obfuscatory political techniques, 
ex-socialist filmmakers and artists have offered viewers of contemporary 
nonfiction much to think through. Fiction, fabulation, fabrication, as 
well as the interstices of fact, (post-)truth, and extrafilmic reality 
are precisely the thorny issues that today’s documentary landscape is 
engaged in; they are also issues that ex-Yugoslavia has had on its mind 
for years. To elaborate and try to understand documentary after 
Yugoslavia within an historical, transnational scope: that is the aim 
and objective of this dossier.

We are not expecting or accepting completed works at this stage. Due to 
the amount of proposals we receive, we kindly ask that you only submit 
finished pieces at our invitation. If you would like to contribute to 
this dossier, please email guest editor Nace Zavrl at 
(zavrl /at/ g.harvard.edu) <mailto:(zavrl /at/ g.harvard.edu)> with a 250-word 
abstract that succinctly states: a suggested title, what your article 
will be about, the argument or perspective you plan to take, why your 
piece will be of interest to the Senses readership, and links to or 
attachments of any previously published work you have written. This call 
for contributions is to be taken broadly and expansively; a wide breadth 
of potential approaches, subjects, and areas of interest will be taken 
into consideration.

The deadline for proposals is July 15, 2022, with notifications of 
acceptance sent out by late July. Commissioned works will need to be 
delivered to the editor by September 1, 2022. Our desired word count is 
between 1000 and 3000 words; contributions will have to adhere to our 
Style Guide (https://www.sensesofcinema.com/about/style-guide/ 
<https://www.sensesofcinema.com/about/style-guide/>). Additionally, 
Senses of Cinema is a labour of love, which means we do not have the 
funds to pay contributors. Please note that by submitting a proposal for 
consideration you agree to the terms and conditions set out in our 
Writers’ Agreement 
(http://www.sensesofcinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Senses-of-Cinema-writers-agreement-2021-1.pdf 
<http://www.sensesofcinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Senses-of-Cinema-writers-agreement-2021-1.pdf>).

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