CIFR Research Forum

The final CIFR research forum before Christmas provided an opportunity for students and staff to share their progress in research over the past few months.

In a long and lively discussion, MA students discussed plans for essays addressing issues ranging from black British cinema of the 1970s and 1980s to questions of national identity surrounding recent Scandinavian films.

Jamie Steele, a first-year PhD student, spoke about his project on ‘European Francophonia’, describing how he is researching the production of French-language films in Belgium.

Phil Wickham, a second-year PhD student and curator of the Bill Douglas Centre, gave an update on his research into recent British sitcoms, while Nick Hall discussed issues around the phenomenology of the zoom shot – a CIFR session on this subject may be forthcoming.

Helen Hanson introduced her research on film sound production techniques, and also talked about a side project on women’s B-movies – with a particular focus on the Torchy Blane series.

Song Hwee-Lim updated the group on his work on slow cinema and his ongoing preparations for a project entitled ‘after Taiwan New Cinema’.

There was further discussion on subjects including the challenges of interdisciplinary work, revisionist historiography, and access to specialist archives.

A number of potential future CIFR seminars were identified, and the group also discussed ways of extending CIFR in order to make it as accessible as possible to non-film specialists.