SCMS panel on independent production

[jesty@uchicago.edu]

Dear all,

I am trying to put together a panel on independent production
in Japanese film for the SCMS conference in 2009 in Tokyo. 

I think looking at specific cases of independent production
are opportunities not only for understanding the groups and
movements themselves, but also provide an occasion for
exploring wider issues of cultural politics, and the politics
of visibility at particular moments in history. 

I?m interested in papers that take up the following issues:

- The concept/claim of independence itself. What does
?independent? mean? What is the group independent of? On the
other hand, how does the group work as an
institution/organization? What institutional forms are adopted
or avoided and why?  

- Film form. How does independence affect films themselves, or
taken the other way, why might certain films necessitate
independence? I?m thinking that institutional independence is
always intertwined with a certain politics of representation.
How does this play out?

- Audiences. The search for new terms in production often goes
hand in hand with a search for new relations between film and
audience. What are some of the experiments in distribution and
exhibition?

Dokuritsu Puro, ATG, Ogawa Puro, recent video activism all fit
in, but I?m sure there are many many others. I?m going to
present on Dokuritsu Puro, but if you?re interested in that
too, that's fine ? there?s plenty of room for more than one
paper on it.

If you?re interested, please send me an abstract (200-250
words) at jesty at uchicago.edu. 

Take care
Justin Jesty