Audiovisual Representations of National Identity for Small Nations: Web 2.0, BBC Wales, S4C, ITV Wales, Welsh TV and Film, Modern Writers from Wales, Welsh-North American, Cymreig Culture, Scottish Films, British Films, Sinema Cymru, Celtic music and movies, UK Filmmakers, Irish TV and Film, Cymru. Celtic Folk Music, Welsh Hymnology and Poetry. Le Cinéma Québécois, le cinéma Bretagne et des autres pays Celtiques. Tutte le cose celtiche, britanniche, gaeliche, scozzese e gallese.
Tony Whitehead is Cinema Programmer at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff. He also works as a part-time lecturer in film at the University of Glamorgan. His book on Mike Leigh has just been published by Manchester University Press.
Tony Whitehead in among the film students' favourite lecturers at the University of Glamorgan, Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries ATRiuM (CCI) Film & Media department, currently teaching 'Screen Language' and other courses.
Tony Whitehead's new book on Mike Leigh is actually enjoyable, not to mention that Leigh himself endorsed it.
It's a wonderful trip down memory lane, revisiting every character and hilariously tragic line of dialogue from Bleak Moments to Vera Drake. Vanessa Gildea, Film Ireland --Vanessa Gildea, Film Ireland
Mike Leigh may well be Britain's greatest living film director; his worldview has permeated our national consciousness.
This book gives detailed readings of the nine feature films he has made for the cinema, as well as an overview of his work for television.
Written with the co-operation of Leigh himself, this is the first study of his work to challenge the critical privileging of realism in histories of the British cinema, and place the emphasis instead on the importance of comedy and humour:
of jokes and their functions, of laughter as a survival mechanism, and of characterisations and situations that disrupt our preconceptions of 'realism'.
Striving for the all-important quality of truth in everything he does, Leigh has consistently shown how ordinary lives are too complex to fit snugly into the conventions of narrative art.
Developing characters and narratives through meticulous processes of improvisation in preparation and rehearsal, Leigh has led his collaborators in creating a body of work that is utterly distinctive.
From the bittersweet observation of "Life is Sweet" or "Secrets and Lies", to the blistering satire of "Naked" and the manifest compassion of "Vera Drake", he has demonstrated a matchless ability to perceive life's funny side as well as its tragedies, establishing a unique niche in the British cinema as both humorist and humanist.
Paperback: 256 pages Publisher: Manchester University Press (1 May 2007) Language English ISBN-10: 0719072379
The Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations Announces Cardiff ATRiuM Calendar of Events . . .
In the Autumn Term and beyond we will be building on our research work through an exciting series of lectures, symposia, publications and other projects.
ATRiuM move:
The Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries has moved from the University's Treforest campus to our new ATRiuM home in Cardiff city centre. With ‘state of the art’ facilities this will offer exciting opportunities for joint work with new partners.
Symposium: ‘The Representation of Welsh Identity Abroad’ 13-14th November 2007
On 13th and 14th November 2007 the Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations is hosting a symposium on The Representation of Welsh Identity Abroad. The Keynote Address will be delivered by First Minister, Rhodri Morgan AM, on the evening of Tuesday 13th November.
[Pictured above: Welsh National Assembly First Minister: Rhodri Morgan]
On Wednesday 14th November, a diverse group of arts and cultural practitioners and academics will address the symposium theme through a series of focused conversations and group exercises. These discussions will be set within the context of what is now a key economic sector, the creative and cultural industries.
[Pictured above: The Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.]
We are most fortunate to have Dr Betty Belanus, Curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, as a participant at this symposium. Dr Belanus is currently a Visiting Research Fellow with the Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations.
The symposium will be held in the ATRiuM, the University of Glamorgan’s new faculty in Cardiff city centre.
Please contact Jackie Aplin (address below) for a registration form and further details.
Public Lecture on Small-Nation Filmmaking by Professor Mette Hjort, 5.30pm Weds 28th November 2007
Pictured above: Dr. Mette Hjort]
Mette Hjort was born in Denmark but educated in Kenya, Britain, Holland, Switzerland, Canada and France. She did her B.A. and M.A. at McGill University in Quebec, Canada, where she did a thesis on Kant and art under the supervision of the Canadian philosopher and political theorist, Charles Taylor.
She holds a so-called ‘nouveau doctorat’ from the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris. Her dissertation, entitled ‘Le procès du spectacle’ was written under the supervision of Louis Marin and focussed on anti-theatricality (pamphlet literature and treatises) in seventeenth century France and sixteenth century England.
Mette Hjort was for many years Associate Professor of English at McGill university, where she was Director of Film and Communications.
She moved to Denmark in 1997 for personal reasons and is currently on leave from her position as Professor in the Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies at Aalborg University.
Mette Hjort is interested in the history of drama, critical theory, philosophy and literature, and minor cinema. She has published The Strategy of Letters (Harvard UP) and, with Ib Bondebjerg, an interview book entitled The Danish Directors: Dialogues on a Contemporary National Cinema (Intellect).
She is editor or co-editor of Rules and Conventions (Johns Hopkins UP), Emotion and the Arts (Oxford UP), Cinema and Nation (Routledge), The Postnational Self (U of Minnesota P) and Purity and Provocation: Dogma 95 (British Film Institute Publications).
'Small Nation, Global Cinema', a book focusing on the challenges faced by small nations in an increasingly globalized media culture, was recently published by the University of Minnesota Press, in the Public Planet series.
A monograph on Stanley Kwan's 'Center Stage' is forthcoming with the University of Hong Kong Press, in the Hong Kong Film Classics Series.
Mette Hjort is Series Editor, with Peter Schepelern, of a new Nordic Film Classics Series that will feature books by James Schamus (on Dreyer's Gertrud), John Hall and Charles Lindholm (on Bent Hamer's Kitchen Stories,) and many others.
Distinguished academic Professor Mette Hjort will be speaking at ATRiuM at 5.30pm Weds 28th November. In her only public talk in Wales, Professor Hjort will deliver a lecture on The 'Advance Party' Initiative: Scottish/Danish Solutions to the Problems of Small-Nation Filmmaking.
'Advance Party' is a Scottish Dogme project which sets out to do for Scotland what director Lars von Trier's Dogme 95 had done for Denmark. Professor Hjort will examine how this unique model of transnational filmmaking helps to provide solutions to the problems of small-nation filmmaking.
Professor Hjort is the Leverhulme Visiting Professor of Film Studies at St Andrews in Scotland and Professor of Visual Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. She has published Small Nations, Global Cinema, and co-edited volumes including The Cinema of Small Nations, Cinema and Nation, The Postnational Self and Purity and Provocation: Dogme 95.
Smithsonian Institution Visiting Fellow
Folklorist Dr Betty Belanus, Curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, has joined the Centre as a Visiting Research Fellow and is undertaking preparatory work for the Smithsonian Festival's focus on Wales in 2009.
2007 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Washington, DC
Since arriving, Dr Belanus has been engaged in an active period of fieldwork which has also involved consultative planning visits around Wales.
Smithsonian Internship
Glamorgan postgraduate student Dr Aparna Sharma has successfully completed an internship which was developed in collaboration between the University of Glamorgan and the Smithsonian Institution.
[Pictured above: Madhvi Dalal, 31, a dancer of Indian origin who currently lives in Cardiff, who is featured in research and articles by Dr. Aparna Sharma]
Aparna, who recently completed her PhD, is a documentary filmmaker and journalist with a particular interest in the visual representation of minority cultures and national and cultural identities.
Centre 'Round Table'
The Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations held its first Round Table working lunch event in June. Expert practitioners with an interest in the Centre’s concerns were brought together to share their thoughts and inform future work.
[Pictured above: Patricia Aithie "Valleys, Wales" oil on canvas 2007 40 x 50cm sold}
The guests were photographer and painter Patricia Aithie; Artist and commentator Iwan Bala; Broadcaster and former BBC Wales arts correspondent Jon Gower; and Electoral Commissioner, Ofcom board member and former BBC Wales & ITN political editor Glyn Mathias.
A wide ranging discussion covered links with other minority cultures, particularly Galicia, cultural diversity, tribalism, faith, the decline of ideologies, democratic engagement and more.
Another event with new guests is planned for the Atrium in early 2008.
Other items of interest . . .
Channel 4: The First Twenty-Five Years
BFI / Channel 4 Conference, 17 –18th November 2007
Professor Steve Blandford, Associate Dean, Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries, will present a paper on C4 and National Voices - S4C and Cinema at the British Film Institute's conference on the first 25 years of Channel Four.
Communication in the Age of Suspicion: Trust and the Media
This volume, edited by Dr Vian Bakir and Dr David Barlow, includes 14 international contributions which examine a number of media genres and media forms.
To make your reservation for the conference you must quickly contact Ms. Jackie Aplin, at the Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations:
Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries / ATRiuM The University of Glamorgan Adam Street Cardiff CF24 2XF Email: jsaplin[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk Web: http://culture.research.glam.ac.uk/
Congratulations to Professor Steve Blandford as his much anticipated, new book is hot off the presses -- This book engages with ideas that are highly topical and relevant: nationalism, nationhood and national identity as well as the relationship of these to post-colonialism. However, it does so within the broad field of drama. Examining the debates around the relationship between culture and national identity, the book documents the contributions of actual dramatists and film-makers to the chronicling of an important historical moment. The book breaks down what have been traditional barriers between theatre, film and television studies, considering the very broad range of ways in which the creators of dramatic fictions are telling us stories about ourselves at a time when the idea of being ‘British’ is increasingly problematic. Much has been written on the ‘break up’ of Britain, but there has been very little to-date about the impact that this is having on drama in the theatre, on television and on film. A very wide range of material is discussed in the book, ranging from box office hits such as The Full Monty to community based theatre in Scotland and Wales.
Order yours today: http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/ppbooks.php?isbn=9781841501505 Steve Blandford, British Film and TV, British Devolution, Welsh Films, Irish films, Scottish Films, British Drama [British Film]
