[Commlist] CFP: Teaching film practices in higher education

CALL FOR PAPERS

"Teaching film practices in higher education: historical and 
contemporary perspectives"

Research on art pedagogy has been expanding in recent years. The 
research project "The practice of cinema in higher education: for a 
comparative approach to the teaching of film practice in art schools", 
supported by Campus Condorcet, has sought to fill in several scientific 
gaps in this field of research. Thus, four meetings organized in 2021 
and 2022 focused on the

i teaching of cinema, transnational circulations, the teaching of 
screenwriting and animation.

This project was directed by Gabrielle Chomentowski (CNRS), 
Stéphanie-Emmanuelle Louis (École nationale des chartes) and Barbara 
Turquier (La Fémis). All of the workshop's work is presented in a 
scientific blog: https://hpca.hypotheses.org/ <https://hpca.hypotheses.org/>

Aiming to extend the work of this research workshop, the present call 
for papers welcomes texts dealing with the teaching of cinematographic 
practices in higher education, and particularly in schools dedicated to 
the teaching of the arts, including cinema in France and abroad. The aim 
is to question how the teaching of film practices is organized 
institutionally, intellectually and from a social perspective. In order 
to highlight the permanence and the mutations of these practices, 
proposals focusing both on historical and contemporary aspects of film 
pedagogies are welcome.

Presentation

The initial workshop was rooted in the French context, in which art 
schools are separate from universities in higher education. The initial 
workshop involved five major French art schools, which are all members 
or partners of the Université Paris Sciences & Lettres : the École 
nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, the École nationale supérieure 
des Arts Décoratifs, La Fémis, the Conservatoire national supérieur 
d'art dramatique, and the Conservatoire national

ii supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris .

Including institutions which are not specialized in cinema gave us the 
possibility to study diverse forms of teaching, which are not limited to 
directing but rather address different collaborative trades in film 
creation (such as acting for the screen or music for film). We welcomed 
various artistic forms using the moving image, such as fiction & 
documentary cinema, video art, experimental cinema, animation film, etc.

Secondly, the workshop sought to explore little-studied archival 
sources, allowing to enrich historical knowledge on these pedagogical 
practices.

The archives of Ecole nationale des Gobelins, IDHEC, CNSAD and ENSAD 
were considered as specific showcases during these sessions. Mapping 
sources has also contributed to historical perspectives, sometimes 
lifting the veil on the under-explored history of these institutions, 
whether it be their organization, their pedagogical practices, their 
communities or their cultural, social or political role.

Apart from exploring existing archives, bridging past and present was 
also sought by creating new archives through individual or group 
interviews. The multiple testimonies of previous or current teachers, 
pedagogical directors, and students, proved as essential in defining the 
complexity of the pedagogical experiences.

Finally, starting from the French fieldwork, the crossing of 
perspectives led to consider what was happening at the university on the 
one hand, and abroad on the other, in a comparative perspective, and 
without claiming to be exhaustive. In particular, the international 
dimension made it possible to open up the field to circulations between 
schools and to explore contrasting national contexts.

The aim of this call for proposals is to expand on of the research 
project’s conclusions, work onthe transmission of cinematographic 
practices in art and film schools, in France and abroad, in order to 
publish a book with international contributions. The proposals may fall 
within the following research areas.

Areas of reflection

By focusing on art and film schools, the book wishes to highlight the 
plurality of teaching in the practice of the moving image. The 
institutions in question may be specialized in cinema or simply 
integrate its practical teaching among other artistic disciplines. In 
this respect, it may be appropriate to recall, depending on the case 
studied, how the teaching of practical knowledge, and not only technical 
knowledge, has been historically organized, and how it has found its 
place in art schools. However, the objective of the book will be, beyond 
the description of structures or institutional approaches, to explore 
pedagogical experiences from the point of view of social actors, such as 
teachers and students, from a historical or current perspective. In 
other words, it will be a matter of analyzing, in context, the multiple 
ways in which the transmission of f i l m - m a k i n g is thought o f 
and experienced. Particular attention will be paid to the development of 
student or teacher circulations from a national or transnational point 
of view. The expected contributions can be in two formats: either 
articles, or interviews or testimonies accompanied by a critical 
contextualization.

The proposals should be structured around the following research topics:

- The plurality and hybridity of film practice teaching

- The local and international mobility of teachers and students

What is film practice? How does one teach, according to a well-known 
paradox,"what cannot be taught" and is rather acquired through practice? 
Film teaching involves various professional skills, classically divided 
into artistic (directing, screenplay), technical (editing, shooting, 
sound, set design, visual effects) or economic (production, 
distribution, exhibition) professions, but this division is rightly 
questioned.

Specifically, the current research program "Collective creation in 
cinema"iii aims to shed light on the complex modes of cooperation within 
a film crew and to question the cinematographic collective in its 
relationship to creation. How does the collaborative nature of cinema 
translate into teaching practices? Apart from teaching each specific 
field of film practice, how do you teach students in these fields to 
collaborate with each other?

Opening up the questioning of film pedagogy to all the dimensions of the 
"collective creation" is key. If film schools, such as La Fémis, 
emphasize a collaborative dimension, more individual teaching models are 
emerging in other places, more centered on the artist-author model. The 
budgetary limitations, the extent of technical means or student numbers 
are also variables involved. The question of collaboration and the 
complementarity of the skills needed to make a film is nevertheless 
central to all these pedagogical practices.

In fact, film pedagogical practices often involve forms of hybridity – 
between theory and practice, between two professions (lighting and set 
design, for example). The name "7th art" historically refers to this 
hybridity of cinema between sensibility, art and optical and technical 
science. Partnerships between art schools, such as the one between the 
Fémis and the Conservatoire Supérieur National de Musique et de Danse 
de Paris in the context of script training, aim to integrate the various 
professions into the creative process. What are the challenges and 
educational benefits of these partnerships?

Finally, favoring the term "cinema", one may overlook other forms using 
the moving images in art schools or departments. It appears that cinema, 
as a historical art form and as an industry, is not the only focus of 
the teachings of art schools. We could broaden the field covered by 
these courses to designate all artistic practices that handle the moving 
image.

The book aims to embrace a variety of formats and approaches,including 
narrative or documentary cinema, video art, experimental cinema, as well 
as animation. This editorial project, however, is not interested in 
non-artistic uses of moving images (e.g. journalism).

1. The local and international mobility of teachers and students

Secondly, we welcome proposals studying the circulation of films, people 
and practices and their role in the construction of cinema pedagogy.

A first type of circulation is that of students, especially at the 
international level. The absence or limited presence of training in the 
film industry in many countries, combined with the reputationof certain 
schools, spurs international student mobility. The archives of the IDHEC 
entrance exam, as well as the great names of the cinema trained in this 
institution, bear witness to these circulations. To a certain extent, 
they reflect economic inequities between countries or echo various 
geopolitical issues. As an example, recent works have focused on

iv these circulations based on the case of the Moscow Film Institute,the 
VGIK, or the FAMU .

One could also question the role that the InternationalLiaison Center of 
Film Schools (CILECT), created in 1955, or its subsidiaries such as the 
GEECT (European Grouping of Film and Television Schools) and others, 
have played and stillplay in the circulation of film teaching practices 
from one school to another.

The mobility of teachers will also be broached, both internationally and 
between institutions more locally (e.g. between different art schools, 
between schools and universities). Indeed, if the film teaching 
institutions are distinguished by their offer and their practices, it 
must be noted that the teachers are not necessarily exclusive to them 
and that they officiate in differentiated pedagogical contexts. Does 
this circulation have an impact on what is transmitted? Are the contents 
adapted from one context to another? Why and how?

Finally, in addition to the mobility of students and teachers, one 
factor of the students’

professional integration is the circulation of their films outside the 
schools where they are

v vi produced: their selection in festivals , their programming in 
cultural institutions , their

broadcasting on televisionvii viii , their edition on DVD or their 
distribution online.

These modes of circulation constitute other modalities of "transmission" 
operated by schools worth investigating.

Calendar

Proposals of 2,500 to 5,000 words in French or English with 
bibliographic guidelines and a short biography should be sent by 
February 13, 2023 to the following three email addresses: 
(stephanie.louis /at/ chartes.psl.eu) <mailto:(stephanie.louis /at/ chartes.psl.eu)>, 
(b.turquier /at/ femis.fr) <mailto:(b.turquier /at/ femis.fr)>, 
(gabrielle.chomentowski /at/ univ-paris1.fr) 
<mailto:(gabrielle.chomentowski /at/ univ-paris1.fr)>

The answers will be communicated to the authors on March 13, 2023.

The texts of approximately 35,000 characters including spaces will be 
due on May 15, 2023 for a publication in the fall of 2023.

For more information, see this link.

i "Teaching film in art schools" on January 29, 2021; "Transnational 
networks of film teaching in art schools" on September 24, 2021; May 20, 
2022; "Teaching animation film in higher education,crossed views" on 
June 23, 2022.
ii See on this subject the guide to sources published by the École 
nationale des chartes as part of the research program "Histoire de la 
pédagogie de la création artistique" in 2021).
iii https://creationcollectiveaucinema.com/ 
<https://creationcollectiveaucinema.com/>
iv Gabrielle Chomentowski, "Filmmakers from Africa and Middle East 
trained at VGIK during the Cold War," Studies in Russian and Soviet 
Cinema, vol 13, issue 3, pp. 189-198 and Gabrielle Chomentowski, "Camera 
in hand and suitcase in hand: student mobilities from the South to film 
schools in the socialist East," Cahiers du monde russe [Online], 63/3-4 
| 2022, See Rasha Salti and Koyo Kouho, Saving Bruce Lee, African and 
Arab Cinema in the Era of Soviet Cultural Diplomacy, HKW editions, 2018, 
Tereza Stejskalova (ed.), Filmmakers of theWorld, Unite! Forgotten 
Internationalism, Czechoslovak Film and the Third World, Prague: 
Tranzit, 2018; Léa Morin, https://cinima3.com/A-propos 
<https://cinima3.com/A-propos>, Marie-Pierre Bouthier, "Transnational 
route of Moroccan filmmakers: Studying in socialist Poland in the 
1960s-70s, rather than in postcolonial France?", International Journal of
African Historical Studies", Monika Talarzcyk and Magda Lipska 
https://artmuseum.pl/en/cykle/nadzieja-jest-w- 
innym-kolorze-program-filmowy 
<https://artmuseum.pl/en/cykle/nadzieja-jest-w- 
innym-kolorze-program-filmowy>.
v The festivals of Clermont-Ferrand and Annecy have a great importance 
as regards the animation.
vi Programming dedicated to the films of Fémis students at the 
Cinémathèque française, for example.
vii The first tests of the Computer Image Workshop of ENSAD were 
broadcasted in the Dim Dam Dom program.
viii For example, ENSAD has published several boxes of its students' work.

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