2016 Italian Film Festival USA
March 30 - April 24
Various Locations and Times - Click Here for Details
Screenings Are Free and Open to the Public
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The Italian Film Festival is screening award-winning, contemporary Italian films shown in their original language with English subtitles. The festival runs through April 24 with screenings in various locations; the following films will be screened locally at Lorch Hall, Askwith Auditorium on Friday, April 8 and Saturday, April 9:
- April 8, 7:00 p.m. - Perez (2014) Drama
- April 9, 5:00 p.m. - I Bambini Sanno (The Children Know) (2015) Documentary
- April 9, 7:30 p.m. - La Nostra Terra (Mafia & Tomatoes) (2014) Drama
This festival is sponsored, in part, by several departments in the U of M College of Literature, Science and the Arts - including Screen Arts & Cultures.
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The Tolerance Trap: How God, Genes, and Good Intentions are Sabotaging Gay Equality
A Talk by Suzanna Duanta Walters, Professor of Sociology and Director, WGSS Program Northeastern University
Wednesday, April 6
2239 Lane Hall
4:10 p.m.
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What’s wrong with tolerance? And how could it possibly undermine real gay equality?
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In this talk, Walters considers how the pseudo-science of “born this way” can combine with demands for marriage equality and a place in the military to create a “trap.” The trap is to imagine that being tolerated is the same as robust integration for America’s gay citizens. We tolerate what we find unpleasant: pain, medicine, annoying relatives. Walters looks at how science, law and popular culture work to create a world where we have marriage equality and gay celebrities, but we also have historically high rates of violence against LGBTQ citizens, a variety of anti-gay legal initiatives and a supposedly gay-friendly Hollywood where very few stars actually come out. Tolerance is not the end goal, but a dead end for anyone seeking genuine equality.
Sponsored by IRWIG; cosponsored by the Departments of Communication Studies and Screen Arts & Cultures.
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SAC Speaker Series Presents
A Talk by Boston University's Deborah Jaramillo
"In Pursuit of Wholesome TV: The Strange Path to the Television Code"
Thursday, April 7
SAC Conference Room, 6360 North Quad
11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
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Deborah L. Jaramillo is an Assistant Professor of Film and Television Studies at Boston University. Her current book project traces the history of the 1952 Television Code.
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The Television Code is a document full of the anxieties and consensus politics of the 1950s, the appeasements of a terrified commercial industry, and the standardization of quotidian business deals. The original TV Code, crafted by the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters and implemented in March 1952, underwent twenty-one revisions until the entire enterprise collapsed in 1983. Perhaps because the Code regulated both program content and stations’ dealings with advertisers, it is not understood to be as controversial or dramatic as the Hollywood Production Code. And perhaps because multiple Radio Codes preceded the 1952 Code, scholars consider it to be more of the same—an inevitable step toward industrial maturity. The journey to the TV Code is simultaneously surprising, funny, maddening, and devastating. By tracing that journey, this presentation will explore the relationships and power struggles that bound national and local interests—both private and public—to the policing of television content.
This event is cosponsored by the Department of Communication Studies
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SAC 236 Special Guest Lecture Featuring
Indiana University Assistant Professor Julie Turnock
"Using the Optical Printer Like a Paint Brush: The RKO Effects Department, Citizen Kane and the Myth of Deep Focus”
Thursday, April 7
Angell Hall, Auditorium A
1:00 - 2:30 p.m.
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Did You Know that Citizen Kane Has More Shots Containing Special Effects than Star Wars?
If you want to learn more, join us for this special guest lecture in SAC 236, Art of Film
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RKO optical printer operator and later effects department head Linwood Dunn later said about his work on Citizen Kane that Welles forced him to use the optical printer “like a paint brush.” As has become somewhat well known, many of the shots in Citizen Kane that were at the time believed to be the product of Gregg Toland’s deep focus lensing have since been revealed to be composite shots built on the optical printer bed by RKO’s exceptionally skilled optical printer operators, most notably Dunn. Even though these shots helped create Toland’s cult as cinematographer-superstar, he never credited these effects artists with completing these “deep focus” shots. The aim of this talk, however, will not be to simply inventory the known effects shots masquerading as deep focus in the film. Turnock will contextualize the production of Citizen Kane from the point of view of the RKO effects department in order to understand the contribution of the effects department on the film as both exceptional and typical of the era.
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Julie Turnock is Assistant Professor of Media and Cinema Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign, in the College of Media. She is the author of Plastic Reality: Special Effects, Technology, and the Emergence of 1970s Blockbuster Aesthetics (Columbia University Press).
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Please join us for an afternoon tea in the SAC conference room from 4:00 - 5:00 p.m. featuring Deborah Jaramillo and film scholar Julie Turnock.
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An Interview with Dr. Jack Shaheen on Arab and Muslim Stereotypes Over the Last Four Decades
Monday, April 11
Gallery Room 100, Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library
6:00 - 7:30 p.m.
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Dr. Jack Shaheen has been studying representations of Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. media since the 1970s. He is renowned worldwide for his lectures and published work, which illustrate the damaging consequences of stereotyping of Arabs and Muslims. Over the last four decades, Shaheen has collected and analyzed materials that depict Arabs and Muslims as the “godless cultural other.” He has created an archive of materials that is housed at the New York University library. He is best known for his book, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People (2001) and the documentary film of the same name (2006). Rather than giving a formal talk, we plan for a Q&A format in which Evelyn Alsultany, Director of Arab and Muslim American Studies, will interview Jack Shaheen about his experiences researching representations of Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. over the last four decades. The objective is to tap into his long experience in documenting media images and their connections to anti-Arab and anti-Muslim policies and perceptions.
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"What Is Digital Studies?" Interdisciplinary Digital Studies at the University of Michigan
Friday, April 15
Gallery Room 100, Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library
11:30 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.
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Digital Studies allows students to engage in topics such as video games and identity, digital culture, the role of computer code in everyday life, and the use of social media as a form of personal and cultural expression. It offers students the methods and tools for studying, analyzing, and critically reflecting upon their everyday engagements with electronic forms of community and culture.
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This conference includes a faculty and graduate student panel entitled "What is Digital Studies" featuring Professor Amanda Lotz ("Researching Television Distribution as Digital Studies") and PechaKucha Presentations featuring Doctoral Student Joseph DeLeon ("Mapping Digital Detroit"). For a full conference schedule, please click here.
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This event is being held in conjunction with the Department of American Culture's 80th Anniversary; Organized by Digital Studies with support from Rackham Graduate School, Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design, and the Departments of American Culture, Communication Studies, English Language & Literature, and Screen Arts & Cultures.
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THIS WEEK'S FEATURED PHOTO
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photo credit, Mary Lou Chlipala
Producer/Writer LaToya Morgan, of AMC's TURN visited Screen Arts & Cultures last week: she held a Thursday night open discussion with SAC Majors and conducted a Friday morning workshop in SAC 427.
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