[Commlist] Cine-Excess 2024 CfP : Blood Ties: The Family in Cult and Horror Cinema

*_Cine-Excess 2024 International Film Festival and Conference_*

*ONLINE CONFERENCE | Blood Ties: The Family in Cult and Horror Cinema, 
22-24 October 2024*

*IN-PERSON SYMPOSIUM | Saturday 26 October 2024 (Birmingham, UK)*

*KEYNOTE SPEAKER | Tony Williams (Professor of Film Studies, Southern 
Illinois University)*

*STREAMED PANEL | Blood Ties Over Time: Cast and Crew Reflections on 
/The Texas Chain Saw Massacre/*

*FURTHER DETAILS TO BE ANNOUNCED INCLUDING SPECIAL GUESTS*

/… a shy but solicitous motel manager tends to his reclusive mother … a 
family of Texan cannibals entertains a reluctant guest for dinner … a 
loyal daughter visits her disturbed mother at her isolated farmhouse, 
bringing ‘food parcels’ … a loving father brings home an unusual pet as 
a Christmas gift for his son …/

For more than half a century, the family, in all its forms, has been at 
the dark heart of cult and horror cinema, and the 2024 edition of 
*Cine-Excess* invites contributors to a family celebration like no other!

50 years on, Tobe Hooper’s /The Texas Chain Saw Massacre/’s visceral 
capacity to shock is undimmed. It remains a touchstone for discussion of 
American cinema (and not just horror) of the period, a definitive marker 
of post-classical cinema and one famously championed by critic Robin 
Wood, whose seminal essay ‘An Introduction to the American Horror Film’ 
is 45 years old this year. We are delighted and honoured to welcome one 
of Wood’s contemporaries, Professor Tony Williams, the author of 
/Hearths of Darkness: The Family in the American Horror Film/ (Fairleigh 
Dickinson University Press, 1996; University Press of Mississippi, 
2014), as our keynote speaker.

For his *Cine-Excess 2024* keynote address, Professor Williams will be 
considering the importance of family representations within a range of 
horror films including /The Texas Chain Saw Massacre/, while a special 
streamed panel comprising of cast and crew members from this seminal 
cult horror classic is also planned for the event.

While 2024 celebrates 50 years of /The Texas Chain Saw Massacre/, this 
year also marks the 40th anniversaries of Joe Dante’s /Gremlins/, the 
film that pioneered modern notions of family friendly horror, and Wes 
Craven’s /A Nightmare on Elm Street/ which powerfully redefined 
contemporary fears surrounding suburban stability.

Aside from discussion of the groundbreaking entries of Hooper, Dante and 
Craven, this year’s *Cine-Excess* Call for Papers welcomes consideration 
of more recent international examples of subversive and socially 
incisive depictions of familial representation.

Since 2002, *Cine-Excess* has developed and nurtured a reputation as a 
safe and inclusive space in which to present new work around global film 
cultures. We welcome submissions from emerging and established scholars, 
activists, filmmakers and community groups. Proposals are welcomed for 
both individual papers or pre-constituted panels that consider case 
studies within a range of different contexts that relate to this year’s 
theme, including:

  * “The Saw is Family”: /The Texas Chain Saw Massacre/ and Its Legacy
  * “Don’t Feed Them After Midnight”: Celebrating the 40th Anniversary
    of /Gremlins/
  * Forty Years Aflame: /A Nightmare on Elm Street/ and the Franchise
    that Freddy Built
  * Frightmares: Deviant Families and Pagan Clans in British Horror Cinema
  * Blood Relatives: (In-)Famous Family Collaborations On Screen and
    Behind the Lens
  * “We’re the Perfect Family Now”: Familial Plasticity in /Seed of
    Chucky/ and the /Child’s Play/ Franchise
  * “Viewer, Beware! You’re in for a Scare”: Family Friendly Horror and
    Children’s Cult Media
  * Surgical Siblings: (Re-)Animating the Perverse Cinema of Brian Yuzna
    and Stuart Gordon
  * Cult on Cults: Charles Manson, “The Family” and Subcultural
    Representation(s)
  * Mothers and Daughters, Fathers and Sons: Gender in the Family
  * (De-)Constructing Family Values: Cult Film, Cultural Crisis and the
    Symbolic Function of the Family
  * Family and the Female Gaze: Women’s Filmmaking and (Post-)Feminist
    Politics
  * “Based on True Facts”: Cult Representations of Real-Life Family Trauma
  * Queering the Family Structure: LGBTQ+ Subjectivity, Acceptance and
    Belonging
  * What Lies Beneath: Whiteness, the Family and Global Images of Racial
    Difference
  * Trauma and Resistance Under the Colonial Gaze: Family, Kinship and
    Community
  * Keeping It in the Family: Case Studies in Kinship and Working Family
    Relations in Cult Production and Distribution Outlets

*Cine-Excess 2024*//invites proposals for *_EITHER_* the online 
conference *_OR_* the in-person symposium. *Participants should indicate 
their preference when submitting their proposal*. The online conference 
is expected to run for a minimum of two days (22-24 October) whereas the 
in-person symposium will be limited to a one-day event in Birmingham, UK 
on Saturday 26 October.

For the in-person symposium, as well as proposals from the above listed 
conference strands, we would be especially interested in submissions 
which deal with the family in horror and exploitation films of the 1970s 
and 1980s, as well as entries reinterpreting the family in the work of 
scholars such as Robin Wood, Tony Williams, Vivian Sobchack, Carol J. 
Clover and Barbara Creed.

Running alongside the conference and symposium will be the online *Blood 
Ties Screening Season *(21-27 October), an online film festival of 
curated cutting-edge cult and horror films from around the globe.

Please send a 300-word abstract and a short bio by *Monday 12 August 
2024* to:

John Atkinson, Editorial Lead of *Cine-Excess*

(john.atkinson /at/ cine-excess.co.uk) <mailto:(john.atkinson /at/ cine-excess.co.uk)>

Daniel Sheppard, Associate Director of *Cine-Excess*

(daniel.sheppard /at/ bcu.ac.uk) <mailto:(daniel.sheppard /at/ bcu.ac.uk)>

Xavier Mendik, Director of *Cine-Excess*

(xavier.mendik /at/ cine-excess.co.uk) <mailto:(xavier.mendik /at/ cine-excess.co.uk)>

A final listing of accepted presentations will be released on *Monday 19 
August 2024*.

We will subsequently invite a limited number of participants to rework 
their papers for inclusion in the seventh edition of the *Cine-Excess 
*journal, for publication in Spring/Summer 2025.

For further information on *Cine-Excess 2024*, visit 
www.cine-excess.co.uk <http://www.cine-excess.co.uk>.

**
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