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Associate Professor Matthew Solomon presents his paper "Illusions of Scale" at The Genesis and Performativity of Mediation Conference at the Maison de la Magie, in Blois, France. Solomon comments on the experience: "It was a real treat to present my work in the presence of some of the best  Méliès scholars in the world [...] and have it be so well-received by them. [Tomorrow], I will pay a visit to Madame Méliès, the granddaughter of Georges Méliès, now age 92, the person upon whom the character Isabelle in the film HUGO is based."
THIS WEEK'S EVENTS
Short Film Soirée: A Presentation of FVSA films 
Wednesday, December 2
Pendleton Room, Michigan Union 
1:00 - 3:00 p.m. 
Join CCI and SAC for an afternoon of M Cookies and short films presented by the Film and Video Student Association. Pop in at any time to view specially selected short films, each ranging from five to fifteen minutes in length. 
Advance Screening of Michael Moore's
Where to Invade Next 
Thursday, December 3
Angell Hall Auditorium A
8:30 p.m. 
Free admission; must have a valid UM ID to enter
“Moore has always been a guerrilla filmmaker, but in Where to Invade Next, his provocations dig deep below the surface of politics. He has made an act of guerrilla humanity”
- Owen Gleiberman, BBC.com.
Cleverly timed for an American Presidential race, Where to Invade Next marks the return of proud patriot and inveterate provocateur Michael Moore with a laughter-laced collage of uncomfortable truths and unvarnished insights into the lamentable state of the American nation. Seeking to save America from itself by offering handy tips from the good he finds in other countries, the engaging Moore tours the globe like a latter-day Phileas Fogg. The result is a wide-ranging, slightly meandering documentary essay that blends crowd-pleasing japes with thought-provoking analysis. (Above text is excerpted from Screendaily's Review by Allan Hunter). 

This event is sponsored by the Screen Arts Screening program and SAC's student organization, FVSA.
Lusophone Film Festival: Tattoo (Tatuagem)
Thursday, December 3
State Theater
7:00 p.m. 
Still from Tattoo, directed by Hilton Lacerda (Brazil, 2013)
On Thursday, December 3, at 7:00 p.m. at the State Theater, see Tattoo, with an introduction by Professor Larry LaFountain. The Brazilian military dictatorship lasted more than 20 years, from 1964 to 1985, and withstood several waves of youthful rebellion, usually by cracking down on cultural movements that threatened to get out of hand. By the mid-1970s, it was possible for an anarchist theatre group to emerge in suburban Recife and put on subversive, queer, avant-garde cabaret shows, just so long as it stayed underground and criticism of the military remained implicit.
The Lusophone Film Festival is sponsored by the Brazil Initiative/Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies, LSA, International Institute African Studies Center, Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Institute for the Humanities, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Sheldon Cohn Fund/Department of Screen Arts & Cultures, Center for European Studies, and Rackham Graduate School.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS
FVSA Lightworks Festival 
Friday and Saturday, December 18 and 19 
Angell Hall Auditorium A
Times TBA
The Lightworks Festival is a showcase of Screen Arts & Cultures' student films. Presented by SAC's student organization FVSA (Film and Video Student Association), the Lightworks Festival is the venue for students to present their end-of-the-term production coursework to classmates, family, and friends of Screen Arts & Cultures. Please join us to support the art of production -- and our talented students.
If you are a SAC student, and you would like more information about submissions and deadlines, please see the FVSA page on the SAC website.  
Rampant, Unfettered Narcissism: A Defense
A Talk by Professor Laura Kipnis
Tuesday, January 12, 2016 
Rackham Amphitheatre
4:00 - 5:30 p.m. 
Laura Kipnis is a cultural critic and former video artist whose work focuses on sexual politics, aesthetics, emotion, acting out, bad behavior, and various other crevices of the American psyche. She is the author of six books, which have been translated into fifteen different 
languages; her latest book is entitled Men: Notes from an Ongoing Investigation. Her essays and reviews have appeared in Slate, Harper’s, Playboy, Bookforum, The New York Times Magazine and The Times Book Review, among others. Kipnis is a professor in the Department of Radio/TV/Film at Northwestern University where she teaches filmmaking; she has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Michigan Society of Fellows, the NEA and Yaddo. She has temporarily put aside a short book-in-progress on narcissism to write a short book on campus sexual politics.

This event is sponsored by the Michigan Society of Fellows, the Stamps School of Art & Design, the Department of Screen Arts & Cultures, and Women's Studies. 
THIS WEEK'S FEATURED PHOTO
Filming in Michigan hasn't changed much since 2002!

From the archives of Al Young (inspired by our recent snowstorm) comes this 2002 SAC 400 class photo featuring Mike Williamson. Williamson was the student equipment room assistant back in the Frieze Building, and he went on to get his MFA at the American Film Institute. After shooting several independent feature films, he is now Associate Chair of Cinematography at the New York Film Academy in LA.

Photo and caption courtesy of Al Young 
NEWS
Associate Professor Matthew Solomon Gives Presentation at International Colloquium in France
Associate Professor Matthew Solomon spent part of his Thanksgiving weekend presenting his paper entitled "Illusions of Scale" at The Genesis and Performativity of Mediation Conference at the Maison de la Magie, in Blois, France. In the paper, Solomon considers what magic's continuing fascination with transformations and scale might tell us about modernity's ceaseless push toward the extremes of both expansion and miniaturization. He presented his work among some of the best Méliès scholars in the world--Frank Kessler, Sabine Lenk, Anne-Marie Quévrain, Jean-Pierre Sirois-Trahan, and Stéphane Tralongo. Solomon is currently in Paris -- continuing his research. 
Hallman, von Moltke, and Herbert Win Mini Cube Funding for New Collaborative Project
The United Artists Theatre was one of several in Detroit that helped define the term “movie palace.” 
Film Studies and Field Librarian Philip Hallman, Associate Professor Daniel Herbert, and Professor Johannes von Moltke have joined forces on a project entitled “Mapping the Motor City’s Cinemas” – a project through which they will explore the history of film and video exhibition in the Detroit area starting in the early twentieth century, in part, using a new mapping software owned by UM Libraries. The project recently won “Mini Cube” funding ($15K) from MCubed, a collaborative program that stimulates innovative research and scholarship by distributing real-time seed funding to multi-unit, faculty-led teams.
SAC Faculty Spotlight: Associate Professor Sheila Murphy 
Sheila C. Murphy has been a member of the SAC faculty since 2002. Currently, she is pursuing two major research projects. Murphy is in the process of completing her book project, ReLoad: The Emergence of Online Visuality. It traces how the Internet changed and what emerged on it when the World Wide Web was invented and images became a primary part of networked computer culture. From memes to blogs, webcams to streaming video, ReLoad explores Internet image cultures of all kinds. To research this project, Murphy spent countless hours on sites like YouTube and Icanhazcheezburger, as well as looking at images now transferred online but first found in books, museums, or even painted on cave walls. Her other big research project explores the concept of gamification—translating terms and mechanics from video games into other objects. In particular Murphy is analyzing fitness trackers and software programs designed to let users “hack” their bodies in what is known as the quantified self movement. In addition to these pursuits, she is gearing up for New Media Theory next term and her graduate seminar on Internet images. Along with her work in SAC, Murphy is active in the Digital Studies minor and is not half-bad at the arcade game Centipede.
In addition to these pursuits, Murphy keeps busy wrangling her three dogs and one cat, collecting cookbooks, and geeking out at home. 
SAC Graduate Student Spotlight: Doctoral Candidate Yuki Nakayama 
Yuki Nakayama is a 4th Year PhD Student currently working on her dissertation proposal about Japanese variety programs. Her project addresses an understudied genre and national television context. She is looking forward to watching ridiculously funny programs as research. Besides research and teaching, Yuki is dedicated to organizing events on campus and she recently took over as head organizer for the SAC Speaker Series. She is excited to be part of this lively community in this way. In her free time, Yuki likes baking gluten-free desserts and movies like Rhinestone
(Clark, 1984). 
Attention Undergrads! Check out the Updated Casting Call on the SAC Website!
Are you interested in acting in a SAC production? Check out the casting call for UM Senior Andrew Day's Honors Thesis Film, Canine, produced by Kaley Wetekamp. Canine is a paranormal thriller about MacReady, a night watchman at a lab. He begins to experience strange happenings on his shift, but when no one else believes him, he fears that his past may be back to haunt him. (20-25 minutes). Casting is going on now! View the full details here.