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Remaking European Cinema

  • 01.06.2018
  • Ghent University, Belgium

Remaking European Cinema

A symposium on the theory and practice of the film remake in a European context

1 June 2018, Ghent University, Belgium

Confirmed keynote speakers:

  • Professor Thomas Leitch, University of Delaware
  • Professor Lucy Mazdon, University of Southampton
  • Dr. Iain R. Smith, King’s College London

The film remake, whether as a practice or a concept, has been around since the very beginnings of cinema. While the earliest studies of the remake provided general overviews trying to sketch patterns and localize differing practices, this was followed by substantial attempts to define the remake as both a textual and cultural artefact and as a commercial business. Building on adaptation theories, scholars eventually pinpointed the intertextual properties that are inherent to (the relationship between) a source film and its remake(s). These evolutions in the research field spurred the idea of the remake as a kind of prism, which can be used to examine a variety of aesthetic, cultural, economic and social questions. For quite some time, most studies in the field were confined to the Hollywood practice of remaking non-Hollywood films, or, vice versa, non-Hollywood film industries remaking Hollywood films.

More recently, attempts are being made to look beyond Hollywood, inquiring into other nations or regions that, for example, remake their own films or the films of neighbouring countries. Notwithstanding these promising evolutions, there is still a lack of sustained research analysing the specific context(s) of European cinema. As a continent, Europe is known for its fragmentation and diversity due to the multitude of different languages and cultures existing next to and through each other within a relatively small geographical area. Although attempts to pinpoint the characteristics of European cinema are always questionable given that ‘Europe’ is as much a social, contingent and dynamic construction as other geopolitical entities, various cultural, economic and political dynamics grant the concept of European cinema analytical value. Accordingly, the purpose of the symposium is to bring together scholars with expertise in the currently vibrant field of remake studies for a discussion of the dynamics and particularities of the film remake in a European context.

Potential subjects to be addressed include, but are not limited to:

  • Historical and contemporary approaches to film remakes in Europe
  • The industrial, financial and production-related dynamics of European remake practices
  • (Regional, national and transnational) public film policies towards remakes
  • Cultural aspects of the European film remake (banal nationalism, cross-cultural comparison, cultural proximity, cultural identity …)
  • Textual aspects of the European film remake (narration, aesthetics …)
  • The distribution, programming, exhibition and reception of European remakes
  • Remakes within European national/regional cinemas (including Western, Northern, Southern, and Central and Eastern European cinemas)
  • Transnational or cross-cultural European remakes
  • European art cinema remakes
  • European popular cinema remakes
  • European remakes of non-European films
  • The European remake and theories of intertextuality, genre, seriality, repetition …
  • European remakes and questions of adaptation, ‘originality’, authenticity, authorship, ownership, copyright …

Paper proposals should include the title of the presentation, a 300-word abstract, and a short autobiographical statement.

Submission deadline: March 10th 2018.

Proposal acceptance notification: March 30th 2018.

Please send your proposals to: remakes@UGent.be

More information on the symposium website: www.remakingeurope.com

Following the symposium, authors of selected papers will be invited to contribute their work to an edited volume on this subject with an internationally renowned academic publisher and/or a special issue of an international academic journal.

This symposium is organized by Gertjan Willems, Eduard Cuelenaere and Stijn Joye, Centre for Cinema and Media Studies (CIMS) at Ghent University. The symposium is funded by the FWO research project ‘Lost in Translation? A multi-methodological research project on same-language film remakes between Flanders and The Netherlands’ and sponsored by the Film Studies section of ECREA and the Popular Communication division of NeFCA.


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