Glamorgan Conjures Spring Film Conference, "Witches and Queens, Whores and Libertines: Early Modern History on Screen" 3-4 April 2008

Historical films and TV series set in the early modern period abound, yet historians have only recently begun to trouble themselves with these popular representations of the past.

Even in film and TV studies, discussion is more about form, technique and aesthetic context than content and message.

What is lacking is a critical dialogue appraising these films and what their choice of subject matter and the way in which it is presented says about contemporary society and its relationship with the past.

This interdisciplinary conference seeks to bring together scholars from the fields of early modern history and literature, media and cultural studies and modern cultural history to discuss the representation of a particular period of history (c.1500-c.1800) on screen (whether in the cinema or on television).

Participants are invited to offer papers on the heritage-film debate, historical film and collective memory, the role of historical productions in making history and its debates accessible, adaptations of early modern texts, the use of historical documentaries, or any other aspect of early modern history on screen.

Please send abstracts of not more than 300 words and a brief CV to the address below.

Papers will be of 20 mins. duration and aimed at promoting discussion.

Deadline for abstracts: 11 January 2008.

Dr Jonathan Durrant
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
University of Glamorgan
Pontypridd
CF37 1DL
United Kingdom

jdurrant[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

© 2007 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

ATRiuM Public Lecture on Small-Nation Filmmaking by Professor Mette Hjort 5.30pm Weds 28th November 2007

The Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations Announces the next upcoming Cardiff Academic ATRiuM Event . . .

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.

Public Lecture on Small-Nation Filmmaking by Professor Mette Hjort, 5.30pm Weds 28th November 2007

Distinguished academic Professor Mette Hjort will be speaking at ATRiuM on Wednesday 28th November. In her only public appearance 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.

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.

About one of the newest books by Professor Mette, The Cinema of Small Nations:

Synopsis: Within cinema studies there has emerged a significant body of scholarship on the idea of 'National Cinema' but there has been a tendency to focus on the major national cinemas.

Less developed within this field is the analysis of what we might term minor or small national cinemas, despite the increasing significance of these small entities with the international domain of moving image production, distribution and consumption.

"The Cinema of Small Nations" is the first major analysis of small national cinemas, comprising twelve case studies of small national - and sub national - cinemas from around the world, including Ireland, Denmark, Iceland, Scotland, Bulgaria, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Cuba, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and New Zealand.

Written by an array of distinguished and emerging scholars, each of the case studies provides a detailed analysis of the particular cinema in question, with an emphasis on the last decade, considering both institutional and textual issues relevant to the national dimension of each cinema.

While each chapter contains an in-depth analysis of the particular cinema in question, the book as a whole provides the basis for a broader and more properly comparative understanding of small or minor national cinemas, particularly with regard to structural constraints and possibilities, the impact of globalization and internationalisation, and the role played by economic and cultural factors in small-nation contexts.



This book includes the first major study of a range of small national cinemas. It provides detailed and informative studies of particular small national cinemas from around the globe.

It features an implicit comparative element that reveals major similarities and differences across the case studies.

It also features a strong line up of international contributors including a number of major internationally recognised experts in the field.

It is written in an accessible style to appeal to students, academics and the general reader alike.

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries / ATRiuM
The University of Glamorgan Adam Street Cardiff CF24 2XF

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

© 2007 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

Rediscovery of Noel Coward Play by Glamorgan’s Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries Scholars Excites International Theatre World

[Pictured above: Professor Mike Wilson, CCI Head of Research; Prof Richard Hand Professor of Theatre and Media Drama, CCI, backstage in Glasgow with Dr Paul Carr Principal Lecturer in Popular Music, CCI.]

Coward Play Rediscovered

September 2007

A Noel Coward play, which has remained untouched for almost 90 years, has been rediscovered by academics at the University of Glamorgan’s Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries.


[Pictured above: Sir Noël Peirce Coward, 16 December 1899 -- 26 March 1973.]



The play, ‘The Better Half’, was discovered in the Lord Chamberlain’s archives in the British Library by Professors Richard Hand and Mike Wilson during research for their latest book, ‘London’s Grand Guignol and the Theatre of Horror’, which includes the text of Coward’s previously unpublished play.



The one-act play was last performed in 1922 by ‘London’s Grand-Guignol’ company, which involved Sybil Thorndike and her husband Lewis Casson.



Professor Wilson explained, “We were conducting research for our book on ‘London’s Grand-Guignol’, a theatre which combined horror and comedy plays on the same bill and were thrilled to have found the manuscript to the play that Coward wrote for the company.



It was probably the only surviving copy of the play and has not been published before.



“This play will no doubt arouse the interest of Coward fans worldwide, especially as it was written at a time when Coward was on the threshold of achieving critical acclaim and fame.”



Now for the first time since the 1920s the play will be performed in London by theatre company ‘The Sticking Place’ as part of their annual Hallowe’en season of horror theatre.

Sticking Place Theatre

Noel Coward Performance (Noel Coward performs some of his song on "Noel Coward & Mary Martin: Together With Music")


This will be a unique opportunity to see the play performed in its original context.



Hand and Wilson’s new book, due to be published in November by the University of Exeter Press, focuses on the attempt to establish a permanent Grand-Guignol theatre in London between 1920 and 1922, an experiment that was ultimately undermined by the censorious eye of the Lord Chamberlain’s Office, the official public censor.



The research was co-funded by The British Academy and the Society for Theatre Research.



tagged: cci research

Issued by: University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, CF37 1DL
Contact: Press Office on 01443 483362
E-mail: press@glam.ac.uk

Noël Coward Society

For additional info please contact Dr. Mark Leslie Woods at mwoods[at]glam.ac.uk

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

AIM -- ATRiuM Intelligent Media, Cardiff, Wales, U.K. on Face Book

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

New Club Starting for Cardiff ATRiuM Arts & Media Students, Faculty and Friends

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

We are an open and inclusive collective of student artists and student entrepreneurs who band together for social contacts, artistic education and stimulation, entertainment and all things pertaining to the advancement of our dreams and careers in media, journalism, film, television, sound and video recording and distribution, set design, costume design, lighting design, concert, online innovations, photography, architecture, mixed and multi-media and dramatic performance.



AIM -- ATRiuM Intelligent Media

Are you a member of the AIM / ATRiuM Intelligent Media? Why not? It’s free and some your friends are joining – so what are you waiting for?

Just what are the Five Primary Aims of AIM / ATRiuM Intelligent Media?


Our Five Primary Aims


1) We are an open and inclusive collective of student artists and student entrepreneurs who band together for social contacts, artistic education and stimulation, entertainment and all things pertaining to the advancement of our dreams and careers.



2) We devise and launch events and projects related to media, journalism, film, television, sound and video recording and distribution, set design, costume design, lighting design, concert, festival and special events promotions, online innovations, presentational graphics, photography, architecture, mixed and multi-media, dramatic performance, public speaking, performance art, individual or collaborative projects and other diversions.



3) We assist each other in developing and perfecting our art forms and professions.

4) We sponsor, attend and promote artistic, educational and social events, including imagined, narrated, fictional, real and virtual.



5) We assist one another in developing our artistic and professional portfolios, and we share these creations at various networking opportunities; with all these activities, we commit ourselves to the promotion and refinement of our own as well as our colleagues’ artistic portfolios and professional dossiers.



Is AIM a political or religious organization?

While it’s true that our ultimate goal is WORLD DOMINATION balanced with INTRINSIC FULFILLMENT nuanced with MEANINGFUL / MEANINGLESS PLEASURE enhanced by INCREDIBLY GREAT STYLE / LACK OF STYLE, and the inevitable material / spiritual gains / losses that accompany these goals, AIM respects the fact that we’re all on similar / different and interesting / mind-numbingly-boring paths; to this end, we neither affirm, deny or espouse any one political view or religious / non-religious, irrational / rational viewpoint.



Is AIM an arts club, a social fetish, a secret society, or a Cult of Personality?

It’s all of these things and none of these things. It has never existed and it has always existed. If it ceased to exist tomorrow, in the GREAT UNIVERSAL SCHEME OF THINGS, hardly anyone would care.



How do I join?

Email our Faithful Leader and Esteemed Founder, Dr. Mark Leslie Woods at mwoods[at]glam.ac.uk

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

AIM -- ATRiuM Intelligent Media, Cardiff, Wales, U.K. on Face Book

What happens next?

When Dr. Mark collects a sufficient number of interested students’ names and details, he will announce an initial organizational meeting.

He’ll probably call or write to you before the end of October 2007, just in time to plan your Halloween costume.



Please include at least your name, alias, email address, mailing address, interests, Zodiac sign, your favourite ice cream flavour and hat / rollerblade size. Dr. Mark will use his extraordinary intuition to guess in which century you were born.



Where will the meetings be held?

The first meeting will be held at either ATRiuM or Ty Pont Haearn in the Cardiff City Centre. ATRiuM students and Ty Pont Haearn residents will host the first meetings to assist the launch of our collective.



Later meetings will held in Newport, London, Aberystywth, Port Meirion, Castle Harlech, Salisbury Plains, among the Roman ruins of Caerleon and the Norman ruins of Ogmore Castle, online, via pod-casts and video-conferences, in eventually in Copenhagen, Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Toronto, Prague, Southern Italy, Barcelona and Amsterdam.



Conversations will take place in the past, present, future, conditional, imperative, pluperfect, and in other dimensions.



Can anyone be a member of this collective?

Well, the collective intends to include all interested residents of Ty Pont Haearn and other local student residences, communes, and shared living arrangements in the Cardiff City centre area.



Students or faculty can be affiliated with ATRiuM, UWIC, Coleg Glan Hafren, Cardiff University, Swansea University, Swansea Institute, Newport School of Art, Media and Design, or other institutions. Enthusiastic, dynamic and artistic friends and families of these students are also welcome to join.

What will be the social and political ethos / mythos of this collective?



Our collective will vacillate between historical notoriety and contemporary obscurity. We will foster greatness and encourage Misfits and other Outcasts. Invariably power struggles, nepotism, clicks, sub-groups, spin-offs, copycats, crass commercialism and other controversies will overtake our collective.



Does any of this strike your fancy?

Read more here: http://aim--atriumintelligentmedia.blogspot.com/2007/09/new-club-starting-for-cardiff-atrium.html

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

© 2007 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

For October More Experimental Films Screened at Cardiff Chapter Arts

You are invited to a screening of a short film
(a collaboration between various CCI staff):

CROSSING (2007)
Dur: 24 ½-minutes
Directed by: Wyn Mason & Ian Wiblin
Music by: Ben Challis & Rob Smith

A man and a woman take a short cut across a scarred landscape. Despite treading the same ground and seemingly sharing the same space, they remain quite separate, absorbed in their own emotional worlds. Without the aid of dialogue to unlock the characters’ thoughts, viewers can only scrutinize the locations they journey through. Slowly, step-by-step, through closely observing the shape and texture of rock, the lie of disregarded railway sleepers or wind blown grass, we begin to delineate the contours of their inner landscapes.

The film is accompanied by live music.

Exhibition: Experimentica
Venue: Chapter Arts
Date: Saturday 20th Oct 2007
Time: 4 pm

Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

Irish & Scottish Filmmakers to Shine at London's Wood Green Film Fest 20-22 April

Wood Green International Film Festival

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

Gwyl Film Ewropeaidd -- FESTIVAL DEL CINEMA EUROPEO: Lecce dal 17 al 22 aprile 2007

The eighth edition of the European Cinema Festival will take place in Lecce from the 17th to the 22nd April at the Cityplex Santalucia.

L’ottava edizione del Festival del Cinema Europeo, riconosciuto dal Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali come manifestazione d’interesse nazionale, si terrà a Lecce dal 17 al 22 aprile 2007 presso il Cityplex Santalucia.

Ideato ed organizzato dall’Associazione Culturale “Art Promotion” si svolge con il Patrocinio del Comune di Lecce, del Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali-Direzione Generale Cinema, della Regione Puglia, della Provincia di Lecce, del Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, del S.N.C.C.I., del S.N.G.C.I., della FIPRESCI, dell’AIACE Nazionale, dell’AGISCUOLA, dell’Agis di Puglia e Basilicata, della Direzione Generale dell’Ufficio Scolastico Regionale e dell’Università degli Studi di Lecce ed è membro del Coordinamento Europeo dei Festival del Cinema e dell’Associazione Festival Italiani di Cinema.

Il Festival si avvale del Comitato dei Garanti (ne fanno parte Krzysztof Zanussi, Citto Maselli, Morando Morandini, Emidio Greco, Gianni Volpi, Gianni Massaro) che ha il compito di certificare la qualità e la validità culturale della manifestazione.

La selezione dei paesi partecipanti mira a realizzare presso il Festival un incontro fra operatori culturali, rappresentanti delle istituzioni di parti artisticamente diverse dell’Europa: condividere e, dunque, valorizzare a livello europeo le cinematografie considerate a bassa capacità di produzione.

Questa politica nella selezione dei film è in coerenza con l’obiettivo principale del Festival del Cinema Europeo che mira a diventare una vetrina per tutti i giovani registi e tutte le nuove forme di espressione del cinema europeo che hanno difficoltà di accesso al mercato.

European Cinema Festival

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods 'Ciao ragazzi!'

Stars Over Glamorgan -- 2006 Welsh Retrospective Film Festival

Did you participate in the 'Stars Over Glamorgan' Project? (Held every Thursday night in March 2006)

Did you work on a production team? What was your job? What was the funniest moment? What was your favorite film? Did you get to meet anyone famous? What did you learn about film festivals and international film marketing? Were you in the audience? What Welsh films would you like to see next year?

Please See: http://marklesliewoods.com/WelshRetrospectiveFilmFestival2006Page2.htm
Please See: http://marklesliewoods.com/WelshRetrospectiveFilmFestival2006.htm
Please See: http://glamlife.glam.ac.uk/newsevents/424/the-stars-gather-at-glamorgan
Please see: http://glamlife.glam.ac.uk/newsevents/376/hy-does-everyone-need-a-buzz

[British Film]

Celtic Film, European Films, Welsh Films, Marc Evans, Boyd Clack, Tim Lyn, Stephen Bayly, Ruth Carter, Manon Eames, Linda James, Daryl Perrins, Brett Mills, Steve Blandford, Hamish Fyfe, Ieuan Morris, Grahame Davies, Mauro Philip Conti, Mark Leslie Woods, BBC Wales, S4C, Glamorgan, Actors' Equity Cardiff