Legacies of French Film Criticism: Crossing Cultures and Perspectives

Despite a growing trend towards globalization and an increase in transnational film production, distribution and exhibition, not all audiences make sense of movies in the same manner. When films travel across borders, how are their meanings and reception impacted? Is the meaning of a film dependent on the cultural context in which it is read? This interdisciplinary panel will examine film criticism that falls under a broad “French-language” umbrella in order to map out significant trends as well as new directions in the study of French film criticism and its points of contact with other international cinemas.

This panel will explore the implications of new and past intercultural meetings of French film, and its criticism, with international cinemas. Through discourses of aesthetics, politics and industry it examines the consequences of such connections on the history, identity and evolution of French cinema and criticism. Possible intersections and approaches might include:

• Modes of production, distribution and exhibition

• Comparative questions of authorship and stardom

• Historical transnational practices

• Cinema as mobilizing of myths of nation

• International film festivals and politics

• Cult of personality/ politique des auteurs

• Desire/gaze/women

• Experience of art


NeMLA formatting standards:
Paper Title: 100 characters (including spaces)
Paper Abstract: 300 words
Starting June 15th, please submit abstracts to this panel here: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/16398
48th Annual NeMLA Convention - Baltimore, Maryland | March 23 - 26th, 2017
Deadline for submissions: September 30, 2016
Decision e-mails will be sent by October 15th. NEMLA asks that accepted and confirmed panelists pay their membership/registration fees by December 1, 2016 in order to present at the 2017 convention.