NEWS

This one-day event aims to bring together postgraduate students, early career researchers and academics, as well as practitioners in order to discuss the role of documentaries in times of austerity, with a special, but not exclusive, focus on the Greek debt crisis. While there has been a marked interest in contemporary Greek film, following the success of several art films at international film festivals, little critical attention has been paid to the growing number of documentaries, and particularly to those that are independently produced, which tend to be distributed through digital platforms and to act as exposés of various facets of the crisis.

The event wishes to explore documentary as a cinematic mode at the crossroads of journalistic and activist practice at a time when public trust in traditional media institutions has significantly waned. We welcome contributions (i.e. papers, presentations, posters, short films) that consider (but are not limited to) the following topics:

• Documentary and/as journalism, methodologies and ethics
• Activist practice and the strategic role of media
• Modes and economies of production and distribution
• Digital media, promotion and archives
• Identities and representation
• Discourses, narratives and rhetoric
• Audiences, witnessing and transformation
• Transnational comparisons
• Advocacy journalism in a global world

Confirmed speakers: Dr. Lydia Papadimitriou (Liverpool John Moores University) and Dr. Alexandros Papadopoulos (University of Manchester).

The workshop will include a screening of Aris Chatzistefanou’s latest documentary Fascism Inc., followed by a Q&A and panel discussion with the filmmaker.

Please send an abstract of 200 words for a presentation of 15-20 minutes, along with a short bio of approx 100 words to Dr. Eleftheria Lekakis at E.Lekakis@sussex.ac.uk and Dr. Olga Kourelou at O.Kourelou@sussex.ac.uk by 6 May 2014.