[Commlist] CFP: The Natural World in the Cinema

**CFP: The Natural World in the Cinema (deadline: 15 January 2023)****

Special Issue of Aniki, <http://aim.org.pt/ojs/index.php/revista/index 
<http://aim.org.pt/ojs/index.php/revista/index>> the Portuguese Journal 
of the Moving Image

This special section is guest-edited by José Bértolo (IELT/ NOVA FCSH, 
Portugal), Maile Colbert (IFILNOVA/ NOVA FCSH, Portugal), and Susana 
Mouzinho (IFILNOVA/ NOVA FCSH, Portugal).

This special section of Aniki aims to map the relationship between 
cinema and what we call ‘the natural world’, recognizing the human as a 
mediating element of this articulation, while responding and reacting to 
the tendency towards anthropocentrism that is found in both film 
production and the plurality of critical approaches canonized in the 
context of film studies. It will promote a broad discussion of this 
problem without any specific focus on a time period, geographical 
provenance or genre. We wish to explore the heterogeneity and rich 
configurations that the natural has obtained throughout the history of 
cinema, in fiction, documentary, and hybrid forms; in works that fit 
explicitly into the field of ecocriticism or that contain an ecological 
subtext that connotes an ecocinematic perspective.

On the one hand, this special section will explore the different ways in 
which cinema presents animals, plants, fungi, the elements, etc. On the 
other hand, it will look at the means by which cinema can question and 
transform these inhabitants and non-human elements of the planet, as 
well as the dynamics of power and influence that humans maintain with 
them. The breadth of the debate involves crossovers between more 
strictly philosophical or aesthetic issues and topics more directly 
associated with environmentalism and political activism.

With a foundation in the field of film studies, this special section 
will benefit from methods and epistemologies from other disciplinary 
areas, such as ecocriticism, philosophy, ecofeminism, queer studies, 
landscape and soundscape ecology, biology, botany, and geology, among 
others.

*no payment from the authors* will be required

Papers may explore the following topics, among other:

- Documentary and nature film

- Poetics of contemplation

- The temporalities of film and the natural world

- Extinction and preservation

- Nature and film genres (cli-fi, eco-horror, disaster film, slow 
cinema, etc.)

- Anthropocentrism and non-human and more-than-human point of views

- Metamorphoses of the natural

- Nature and soundscapes

- Cinema and environmental politics

- Activist moving-image practices

- Experimental cinema and video-art.

This special section is guest-edited by José Bértolo (IELT/ NOVA FCSH, 
Portugal), Maile Colbert (IFILNOVA/ NOVA FCSH, Portugal), and Susana 
Mouzinho (IFILNOVA/ NOVA FCSH, Portugal).

José Bértolo is a postdoctoral research fellow at IELT (NOVA FCSH) and 
an invited professor at ESAD-CR. He is a co-PI of the FCT-funded project 
“Spectrality: Literature and the Arts (Portugal and Brasil)”. He 
completed his PhD in Comparative Studies (2019) at the University of 
Lisbon. He was a member of Centre for Comparative Studies (CEComp) of 
the University of Lisbon between 2013 and 2020, and a visiting 
researcher at Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3, in 2019. His main 
areas of research and publication are film studies, intermediality and 
photography. He is the author of three essay books: Imagens em Fuga: Os 
Fantasmas de François Truffaut (2016), Sobreimpressões: Leituras de 
Filmes (2019) and Espectros do Cinema: Manoel de Oliveira e João Pedro 
Rodrigues (2020). He co-edited three collected volumes. He coordinates 
the “Ecocinemas” Workgroup of the Portuguese Association of Moving Image 
Researchers (AIM). He is also a photographer: 
https://www.josebertolo.com <https://www.josebertolo.com>.

Maile Costa Colbert is an intermedia artist, researcher, and educator 
with a focus on time-based media, currently a professor at the School of 
Fine Arts, University of Lisbon. She was a PhD Research Fellow in 
Artistic Studies with a concentration on sound studies, cinematic sound 
design, and its relationship with soundscape ecology at the Universidade 
Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas (NOVA FCSH), 
through the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), and a visiting 
lecturer at the Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto and 
Universidade da Maia. Her current practice and research project is 
titled, Wayback Sound Machine: Sound through time, space, and place 
(http://www.mailecolbert.com/proj-wayback.html 
<http://www.mailecolbert.com/proj-wayback.html>), and asks what we might 
gather from sounding the past. She is a collaborator with the art 
organization Binaural, where she is the Digital Archive Curator, and is 
a member of CineLab, IFILNOVA’s research lab for cinema and philosophy, 
and an editor and author at Sonic Field 
(http://sonicfield.org/author/mailecolbert/ 
<http://sonicfield.org/author/mailecolbert/>). She has exhibited, 
screened, and performed globally.

Susana Mouzinho isa PhD candidate in the Artistic Studies Doctoral 
program at NOVA FCSH, FCT fellow and associate member of CineLab – 
IFILNOVA. MA in Arts and Communication with a thesis on the concept of 
the analog and contemporary artists’ films. Invited professor of film 
and photography at IADE – European University. Artist, contributor and 
editor at contemporary art magazine Wrong Wrong. She has presented work 
at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC), Fuso Festival, Oliva 
Art Centre, Museum of Neorealism, Culturgest, among others.

The deadline for submitting original and complete articles is 15 January 
2024.

All submissions received within the deadline will undergo a selection 
process (by the editors), followed by blind peer review (by external 
reviewers). The texts should not be longer than 8 000 words, and must 
include, in English and Portuguese (and also Spanish, if that is the 
language used): a title, an abstract of up to 300 words and a maximum of 
6 keywords.

Before submitting your complete article, please read the full 
instructions here: 
https://aim.org.pt/documentos/aniki/en/Aniki_Instructions_for_authors_EN.pdf 
<https://aim.org.pt/documentos/aniki/en/Aniki_Instructions_for_authors_EN.pdf>

For any queries, please contact: (aniki /at/ aim.org.pt) <mailto:(aniki /at/ aim.org.pt)>

Articles submitted to Aniki will be the object of a double-blind 
peer review process*. Authors must refer to Section 
Policies <http://aim.org.pt/ojs/index.php/revista/about/editorialPolicies#sectionPolicies 
<http://aim.org.pt/ojs/index.php/revista/about/editorialPolicies#sectionPolicies>>, Author 
Guidelines <http://aim.org.pt/ojs/index.php/revista/about/submissions#authorGuidelines 
<http://aim.org.pt/ojs/index.php/revista/about/submissions#authorGuidelines>> and 
Peer Review 
Process <http://aim.org.pt/ojs/index.php/revista/about/editorialPolicies#peerReviewProcess 
<http://aim.org.pt/ojs/index.php/revista/about/editorialPolicies#peerReviewProcess>>, both 
available at the journal website.



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