The Research Group on Film Studies of CIAC – Research Center for Arts and Communication of the University of Algarve organizes the II International Colloquium of Mediterranean Cinemas, which features the participation of guest speakers from the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, Morocco, Brazil, and Portugal.

Italian cinema will be the focus of this 2nd edition. The goal is to promote intercultural dialogue and stimulate the exchange of knowledge and the creation of partnerships for research on cinema in Mediterranean countries, from an inter and multidisciplinary perspective.

The event, scheduled for April 10th and 11th, will take place in auditorium 1.4 of the Pedagogical Complex at the Penha Campus of the University of Algarve.

Keynotes

Sir Christopher Frayling: Once Upon a Time in Italy

Once upon a time…at the end of August 1964… a film opened at the Supercinema in Florence which was to change the face of global film culture, and especially of action cinema. It had a very unpromising pedigree: a low budget Italian-West German-Spanish co-production, using leftover sets from a Zorro adventure, based on a Japanese samurai film, starring an American actor from a long-running CBS television series which was fast running out of ideas, with an Italian director whose only previous credited feature film had been The Colossus of Rhodes. Unpromising, and yet…the film was A Fistful of Dollars, and, as Quentin Tarantino recently said, “modern cinema begins here”: films about other films; the interplay of music and image; the comic-strip panache; the pop-inflected soundtrack; the hybridisation of different cultures; the birth of the modern hero…

This illustrated talk, by Sergio Leone’s biographer, will revisit and re-examine the film and its legacy, sixty years on.”

Christopher Frayling is an award-winning writer and broadcaster, and former Rector of the Royal College of Art as well as former Chair of Arts Council England and of the Design Council. A regular contributor to BBC Radio 4, he has published twenty-six books – including Spaghetti Westerns, Sergio Leone – something to do with death, and Once Upon a Time in the West – shooting a masterpiece. He has also written and presented the extras for the DVD versions of Leone’s Dollars films, and curated major exhibitions about the Italian Western in Los Angeles, Turin, Rome and Paris. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000 for “services to art and design education”, and is currently Distinguished Professor of Arts at the University of Lancaster, Professor Emeritus of Cultural History at the Royal College of Art and a Fellow of Churchill College Cambridge.

Stefano Baschiera: Imitate, reuse, recycle: for a new approach to the Italian filoni

This talk addresses traditional academic approaches to the Italian genre factory of the 1960s and 1970s, typically dominated by questions of auteurism, national cinema, and genre theory, to reflect on the role of popular cinema within a transnational context. After engaging with the ‘cinema of imitation’ and the development of the sottofiloni the talk focuses on the cinema of the period in terms of its production system and its ability to exploit cultural trends and international networks while maximising scarce resources. The result is a reflection on the concept of recycling as a key element for understanding the production of Italian popular cinema of the period and a look at the lessons in sustainability that can be applied to the contemporary production landscape.

Stefano Baschiera is Professor in Film and Screen Industries at Queen’s University Belfast. His research on cinematic spaces, European cinema, and screen industries has been published in various edited collections and journals, including Bianco e Nero, Studies in European Cinema and The New Review of Film and Television Studies. Recently, he co-edited Italian Horror Cinema (2016), Film and Domestic Space: Architectures, Representations, Dispositif (2020), World Cinema on Demand (2022). The monograph, Domestic Space in Italian New Wave Cinema, 1961-1972 is forthcoming for EUP.

Guest Speakers

Austin Fisher – Bournemouth University (UK)

Curating Italian horror films in the streaming era

José Bogalheiro – Lisbon School of Theatre and Cinema

Fulguration and metamorphosis: cinema according to Pier Paolo Pasolini

Hugo Barreira – Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Oporto

In the sanctuary of materialities: towards new readings of art direction from the Cinecittà collection

Jean Montarnal – author and independent researcher

La «Qualité française» à travers l’objectif de Julien Duvivier

Elena Cordero Hoyo – CEComp – FLUL / URJC / TAI

Labour and affective relations in the new generation of Catalan female directors

Thematic Painel: Film, Literature and Tourism in Croatia

Sonja Novak – Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Osijek, Croatia

Hana Jušić’s “Quit Staring at My Plate” (2016): A Film about Gender, Intimacy and Search for Freedom or an Anti-Postcard from Croatia?

Stephanie Jug – Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Osijek, Croatia

The Heroine’s Journey in Antoaneta Alamat Kusijanović’s “Murina” (2021)

CIAC Coordination

• Mirian Tavares
• Bruno Mendes da Silva

Honor Commitee

• Gian Piero Brunetta – Professor Emérito Università Di Padova
• Denize Araujo – Universidade Tuiuti do Paraná 

Scientific Committee

• Alexandra Rodrigues Gonçalves
• Ana Soares
• Austin Fisher
• António Costa Valente
• Bruno Mendes da Silva
• João Carlos Firmino Carvalho
• Jorge Carrega
• Mirian Tavares
• Silvia Quintero
• Tim Bergfelder

Organizing Committee

• Jorge Carrega (Coordenação)
• Alexandre Martins
• Ana Filipa Martins
• António Costa Valente
• Austin Fisher
• Sílvia Quinteiro

Communication and Logistics Committee

• Beatriz Torres Valente
• Frederico Bento
• João Paulo Cunha
• Juan Manuel Escribano Loza
• Rita Cassitas
• Tiago Alves

Programme

Book of Proceedings