Agenda

02 Nov 2026 17:30

Film Festivals: Borders, Identities, Solidarities - International Symposium Second Edition

Concordia University, Visual Arts Building (VA 323), 1395 René-Lévesque Blvd. W. & 4th Space, Library Building, 1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W, Montreal, Canada

Organising committee
Dunja Jelenkovic – Chair (UNIVE & Concordia University), Giulio Tosi (UNIVE), Arlo Gross (Concordia University)

Scientific committee
Ger Zielinski – President (Toronto Metropolitan University), Bilge Yabanci (University of Deusto), Tania Saeed (Lahore University), David Archibald (University of Glasgow), Marco Dalla Gassa (UNIVE), Dunja Jelenkovic (UNIVE)

Launched at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (UNIVE) in November 2024, the symposium Film Festivals: Borders, Identities, Solidarities continues in 2026 with its second edition at Concordia University in Montreal. Building on the discussions initiated in Venice, it aims to further explore how issues of borders, identities and solidarities have been shaped, negotiated and contested through film festivals in various contexts of social and political turbulences. The symposium is organised around the idea that film festivals are highly visible cultural events, experienced by audiences in the present and documented for the future through catalogues, press materials, media coverage, and critical discourse. Their influence is thus both immediate and enduring. In the present, they act as political actors, shaping public engagement with and understanding of major societal issues of our past and present. Over time, they also function as sites of memory (Nora, 1984 [1997]), contributing to the ways these issues are collectively remembered across generations (Assmann, 1995). Against
this backdrop, this edition of the symposium places particular emphasis on film festivals as generators of wartime solidarity and war propaganda, as well as on the gendered dynamics of their engagement with conflict. Knowing that wars profoundly affect societies and human lives, the ways in which they are interpreted, represented and remembered are particularly important. In this context, film festivals constitute valuable sites for examining how solidarities are mobilised, political positions articulated, and narratives of conflict legitimised, contested or transformed.

Programme attached. All times are EST (Eastern Standard Time).

--
Organised by Dunja Jelenkovic within the MSCA project FESTWAR FM – Film Festivals and War: A Fe-Male Perspective (1939-present), funded by the European Union (GA number: 101149227). Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Language

The event will be held in English

Organized by

Concordia University, Ca' Foscari University of Venice - Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, Research Project FESTWAR FM

Downloads

Poster 477 KB
Programme 461 KB

Search in the agenda