[Commlist] Call for Papers: 'Nordic Documentary Film Since the 1990s'

Call for Papers: Journal of Scandinavian Cinema

Special Issue: 'Nordic Documentary Film Since the 1990s'

View the full call here>>

https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-scandinavian-cinema#call-for-papers 
<https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-scandinavian-cinema#call-for-papers>

Nordic documentary films have achieved an acclaimed position in the 
global field of documentary filmmaking. Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, 
Finnish, Icelandic and Sámi documentaries have circulated film festivals 
around the world winning prestigious awards. Nordic creative documentary 
film has become a brand of its own, signalling author-driven, artistic, 
independent film making outside inhouse production at national 
television broadcasters. The range of themes, approaches and styles has 
been wide, from personal to global political issues, from experimental 
to ‘mainstream’ productions.

One element behind the success of Nordic documentaries has been the 
relatively stable social order, welfare state and well-established 
institutions of these countries. Public service broadcasting systems and 
national film foundations share a commitment to documentary in all its 
forms and have been the cornerstones for Nordic documentary film. In 
addition, some common institutions, like the Nordic Film and TV Fond and 
Nordisk Panorama Festival and Forum, have also supported a Nordic 
outlook on documentary.

However, by the mid-2020s, the media landscape in the Nordic region had 
become ill-suited to sustaining a vibrant, nuanced, artistic, creative 
and diverse documentary film culture. Public television continues to 
shrink, governments continue to cut arts budgets and tighten controls on 
film foundations, streamers and micro content platforms pressurise and 
fracture established film cultures. What then of documentary in the 
Nordic regions today? To what extent does the documentary’s ‘legacy’ 
platforms, institutions, aesthetics and audiences continue to survive? 
What new forces and systems of meaning and distribution have emerged to 
fill the gaps, or indeed have grown through old gaps to create new 
growth? And how does all this affect the aesthetics and practices of 
documentary film making?

This issue invites contributions (full articles between 7000-8000 words; 
short subjects of 2000-3000 words) on key aspects of Nordic documentary, 
including historical studies that can illuminate contemporary events. 
Articles could consider themes such as:

-Documentary aesthetics
-Topics, themes and styles of Nordic documentary
-Documentary auteurs
-Documentary systems and ecologies
-Documentary takes on the society and world
-Documentary audiences
-Documentary and technology
-National, transnational and international influences
-Case studies that combine various themes

Please send abstracts of (max) 300 words to (jouko.aaltonen /at/ aalto.fi) 
<mailto:(jouko.aaltonen /at/ aalto.fi)> and (dafydd.sills-jones /at/ aut.ac.nz) 
<mailto:(dafydd.sills-jones /at/ aut.ac.nz)> with 6 key words, and a brief 
author biography of 100 words.

Timeline:
CFP: 1 May 2025
Abstracts Deadline: 15 October 2025
Abstract acceptance decision: December 2025
Submission Deadline: August 2026
Final Articles to publisher: September 2026
The issue will be 17:1 or 2, out 2027

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