[ecrea] cfp - Immagine // "Beyond the Istituto Luce. Views from the Italian Documentary Periphery (1924-1943"

*CALL FOR PAPERS*

*Beyond the Istituto Luce*

*Views from the Italian documentary film periphery (1924-1943)*

**

*Special Issue of «IMMAGINE. Note di Storia del Cinema»*

*Journal of AIRSC (Italian Association for Research in Film History)*

*N. 15: July 2017 *

**

*Edited by Giuseppe Fidotta and Andrea Mariani*

The scholarship on Fascist documentary attests to the centrality of 
documentary film within the problematic development of Italy’s national 
cinema. Yet, for many historians the very existence of interwar 
documentary film arguably coincided with the Istituto LUCE’s film 
production. With this call for papers we would like to encourage a 
reflection on Italian documentary film privileging marginal over 
institutional forms. Focusing on the 1924-1943 period (not accidentally, 
the Fascist Istituto LUCE’s lifespan), we propose to consider a stage of 
Italian film history in which more or less unregulated film culture 
activities underwent a process of gradual institutionalization 
culminating in the mid-thirties (e.g. the Istituto LUCE’s presidency of 
Giacomo Paulucci di Calboli, Cineguf, Centro Sperimentale, Direzione 
Generale della Cinematografia, etc.). In these respects, our aim is to 
chart how distinct forces and agencies - somehow bound together under 
the label of “amateur cinema” - reacted to the regimentation of film 
practice. In other words, this call for papers invites the exploration 
of the grey area between independent production and dilettantism, that 
is, the multilayered professional or semi-professional practices 
unrelated to institutions such as the Istituto LUCE, Incom, Cines, etc. 
With regards to the dialectic of independent production and interwar 
documentary history and theory, three compelling issues ask for a deeper 
survey:

1. _The Historiographical Issue_

How and when was evidence of a discourse on documentary film located in 
non-institutional practices? Was there any propagation of documentary 
film theory in non-institutional contexts, even if occasional and bland? 
What was the role of documentary forms in processes of local and 
national identity formation? How did the idea of documentary influence 
the establishment of a professional film industry? How did amateur 
activities flourish against or in dialogue with institutions? Where did 
the amateur film universe take shape?

2. _The Formal Issue_

Is it possible to speak of a distinctive aesthetics of non-institutional 
interwar documentary film in Italy? What were its relationships with 
coeval experimental and avant-garde experiences? How did it contribute 
to the debate on tradition vs. innovation within both commercial cinema 
and the arts? How did industrial needs and reasons penetrate amateur 
practices? How did cinema’s usefulness enable differentiation and 
formalization from a film genre perspective? How were these processes 
related to the discourse of film style and rhetoric? How did ongoing 
political and cultural debates resonate with non-institutional 
documentary aesthetics?


3a. _The Methodological Issue: Discourses_

What were the relationships between non-institutional interwar 
documentary film in Italy and coeval visual culture? Is a synoptic view 
of a documentary culture possible that takes into account the whole 
system of the arts? How were the discourses of non-institutional 
documentary film related to the question of modernity?

3b. _The Methodological Issue: Tools_

What tools does the historian have to chart non-institutional 
documentary film territory, its center/periphery dialectics, and its 
influence upon institutional documentary film? What are some excavation 
techniques and investigative approaches that allow the historian to 
systematize such a dispersed, marginalized and uncharted heritage? How 
do IT-based instruments (e.g. web, big data, database, social networks 
etc.) contribute to the redefinition of the historian’s toolbox?

Finally, we would like to encourage contribution on (but not limited to) 
the following topics:

-Distribution, circulation and dissemination

-Independent production and professionalization

-Modes and techniques of production

-Documentary technologies

-Industrial and corporate documentary film

-Amateur documentary between architecture and city planning

-Exhibitions, expositions and film contests

-Place, landscape and territory in home movie cinema

-Amateur documentary theory

-Documentary and the avant-garde

* Abstracts of 250 words as well as a brief biography (3 lines) should 
be sent no later than 15 NOVEMBER 2016 to the following email addresses:

(giuseppe.fidotta /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(giuseppe.fidotta /at/ gmail.com)>

(andreamariani.home /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(andreamariani.home /at/ gmail.com)>

(_immagine.redazione /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(immagine.redazione /at/ gmail.com)>_



* Notification of acceptance or refusal will be communicated by 15 
DECEMBER 2016.

* The language of the papers can be Italian, French or English.

* Full text (30,000-40,000 characters, notes included)submission 
deadline is 15 MARCH 2017. All papers will be submitted to a double 
blind peer review.

****************************************************************************


/Immagine. Note di Storia del Cinema/ is the peer-reviewed​, bi-annual 
journal of the Italian Association for the Research of Film History 
(AIRSC), which has been working in the field of film heritage promotion, 
conservation and diffusion since 1964. Born in 1981, the journal hosts 
scientific essays dedicated to film history and historiography, with a 
specific focus on Italian cinema. In 2014 /Immagine. Note di Storia del 
Cinema/ was included by the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation 
of the University and Research System (ANVUR) in the highest class of 
film academic journals.
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