An international conference on film theory and analysis held in Morelia, Mexico from October 1-3 in tandem with the Morelia International Film Festival.

Keynote: Robert Stam, New York University, "The Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation"

Where: The city of Morelia, in the state of Michoacán, Mexico

When: Thursday, October 1 to Saturday, October 3, 2009, in tandem with the 7th edition of the Morelia International Film Festival

Presented by: Sepancine/Mexican Society of Film Theory and Analysis, the Working Group "Expression and Representation" of the Metropolitan Autonomous University-Cuajimalpa (UAM-C), and the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM)

For: Scholars and graduate students working on film theory and analysis

The Conference

This conference is designed to stimulate reflection on practices of film theory and analysis, exploring both their methodological diversity and their usefulness for teaching. Abstracts will be considered for any topic relating to or exemplifying methodologies of film theory or analysis, including film-theoretical papers and/or analyses of specific cinematic texts.

Within this wide scope, this year's selection committee especially welcomes abstracts touching on the following themes: Mexican Cinema since 1970, Film and Literature, and Theories and Methodologies of Film Analysis.

After the conference, a selection of essays based on paper presentations will be made into a book and submitted to an academic press in Mexico. English manuscripts that are accepted will be translated into Spanish.

Please send an abstract of up to 150 words, along with a bio of up to 150 words, before Monday, June 22, 2009, to Mara Fortes at the University of Chicago: mara.fortes@gmail.com.

The conference will be able to provide simultaneous translation for a substantial number of papers; if you wish to present in English, your abstract and bio should be in English. Acceptance notifications will be sent by Monday, July 20, via E-mail, along with the conference program. The conference fee is $40 USD.

Steering Committee in Mexico:

Lauro Zavala, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco
James Ramey, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Cuajimalpa
Jacqueline Gómez, Universidad Intercontinental

Steering Committee E-mail: sepancine@gmail.com

The Film Festival

The Sepancine conference is scheduled this year in tandem with the Morelia International Film Festival, which holds its inaugural events the evening of Saturday, October 3, just after Sepancine's keynote address by Robert Stam. Scholars attending the conference are also welcome to attend the festival; free tickets to the festival's inaugural screening and party will be issued to all Sepancine presenters, and discount tickets for subsequent festival screenings will be available.

Following is a note of welcome from the organizers of the festival.

The Morelia International Film Festival is proud to act as a host for Sepancine's Fifth International Conference on Film Theory and Analysis. We greatly appreciate Sepancine's scholarly work on film and will be extremely pleased to have the opportunity to welcome scholars to Mexico and to Morelia in conjunction with our festival.

The festival takes place this year from October 3-11 in Morelia, a beautiful colonial city located between Mexico City and the Pacific coast. Morelia has its own international airport and is a 3.5-hour drive from Mexico City. The festival was founded in 2003 to nourish a new generation of Mexican filmmakers, giving them a vibrant platform and creating a vital meeting point for lovers of film from Mexico and around the world. The program is built around three competitive sections of short, documentary and feature films from Mexico. In addition, the festival includes an ongoing section devoted to films "without borders" that explore questions of nationality and geography as well as border-crossing innovations in film form; tributes to Mexican film pioneers; and a strong presence of work from Mexico's diverse indigenous communities.

Each year, the festival also showcases Mexico premieres of 40 to 50 international features, and pays tribute to prominent figures in the film world. Among these guests have been Werner Herzog, Gus Van Sant, Barbet Schroeder, Salma Hayek, Tommy Lee Jones, Manoel de Oliveira, Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Carlos Reygadas, Diego Luna, Gael Garcia Bernal, Guillermo Arriaga, Bertrand Tavernier, Stephen Frears, Arthur Penn, Christian Mungiu, Raoul Ruiz, Julia Ormond, Nicolas Philibert, Mike Hodges, Steven Soderbergh and Todd Haynes.

The festival has a unique alliance with the International Critics' Week Section of the Cannes International Film Festival, which invites a selection of Morelia's prize-winning films for a special screening at Cannes. We are also included on the "Short Films Awards Festivals List" of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which allows the winners of Morelia's Best Fiction Short Film and Best Animated Short Film to be considered for Oscar nomination by the Academy's Board of Governors.

The city of Morelia itself is a jewel of colonial architecture, named a Center of World Heritage by UNESCO, dotted with churches and palaces of the 16th-19th centuries, and surrounded by rustic rural villages famed for their arts and crafts. The local cuisine is beyond compare. For centuries, Morelia has been a seat of culture and higher education, and the local audience has shown a great passion for Mexican and world film culture, and for the festival. This makes for a feeling of great excitement during the week of the festival. Nevertheless, the festival is also extremely navigable. Most venues are within 10 minutes of each other, on foot. And every such walk surprises the visitor with vistas of great beauty.

For more information about the Morelia International Film Festival, including international news coverage, please visit www.moreliafilmfest.com.