Films and transitions are linked in different ways: whether it is a shift from one world to another, or a movement between two worlds that are simultaneously connected and separated by the screen (Elsaesser, Hagener 2007: 50). Transitions affect such areas as film aesthetics, history and film history, as well as the process of identity formation – of film protagonists, viewers, and not least of cinema itself.
Certain forms of film montage mask or emphasize transitions in a film, such as dissolve, fadein, or match cut. Karsten Witte, for example, analyzed the particular obsession of films made during the Nazi era with the editing technique of dissolve in the context of propaganda (Witte 1995: 242). Aesthetic transitions in film also include acousmatization and de-acousmatization, specific changes in image/sound interrelations on the one hand, and the disenchantment of omnipresent film characters on the other (Chion 1999: 17 ff). The Western is also a genre primarily concerned with transitions, but in the form of radical transgressions of spatial, cultural, and mythological boundaries that culminate in the concept of the frontier and in long shots of American landscapes.
Audiovisual representations of historical shifts (e.g., the post-war and Wende periods in Germany, the collapse of the USSR, the transition from Latin American military dictatorships to democracy) reflect political and social differences. Cinema can explore such fleeting times, “capture” them (cf. Tarkovskij 1991), and make them experienceable. Films like Roberto Rossellini’s Germania anno zero (1947) cross borders – cultural, national, linguistic – as they switch from one political system to another and sound out ambivalent codifications of historical continuities or ruptures. Transitional phenomena in the history of technology, such as sound, color film, or digitalization, can be studied in the same way.
Films reflect liminal states of in-betweenness – dream, hallucination, or imagination. They also attempt to make the fluidity of identity and difference audio-visually experienceable. This particularly concerns issues of gender, class, race, nation, or religion. Long-term documentaries and specific genres (e.g., coming-of-age films or biopics) focus on capturing such transformations. Moreover, desire as a driving force behind cinematic transitions is an essential topic in this regard. In recent festival cinema, autobiographically motivated documentaries such as Touch Me Not (Adina Pintilie 2018) or playful essay formats such as Paul B. Preciados Orlando (2023) confront categories of gender attribution and sexual desire, for example, by countering established notions of binary transnormativity. In addition to impulses for current discussions, the influence of films on everyday knowledge comes into view (cf. Raczuhn 2018).
The 28th International Bremen Film Symposium focuses on these cinematic dimensions of transitional states. We welcome contributions that explore issues at the intersection of film and in-betweenness, such as:
• Film theoretical and philosophical conceptualizations of film and transition;
• (Film) aesthetics of transition: dissolve, montage, acousmatization, deacousmatization, digital effects of transition, etc.;
• States of in-betweenness: dream, imagination, hallucination;
• Identity transitions: gender, class, race, nation, religion, etc.;
• Historical and political transitions in film: the post-war and Wende periods in Germany, the collapse of the USSR, Latin America after military dictatorships, etc.;
• Genre transitions: genre characteristics, hybrid constellations, transformation of genres;
• Transitional processes in the history of technology: sound film, color film, digitalization, critical reflection on the changing dispositifs of cinema.
If you would like to participate in the 28th International Bremen Film Symposium with a presentation, please send us an abstract (2 000 characters) and a short biography in German or English to film-history@uni-bremen.de by October 28, 2023. The conference consists of lectures, film screenings, and discussions and will take place from May 22 to 25, 2024 at CITY 46 / Community Cinema Bremen.
Literature
Michel Chion. The Voice in Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
Thomas Elsaesser, Malte Hagener. Filmtheorie zur Einführung. Hamburg: Junius, 2007.
Annette Raczuhn. Trans_Gender im Film. Zur Entstehung von Alltagswissen über Transsex_ in der filmisch-narrativen Inszenierung. Bielefeld: transcript, 2018.
Andrej Tarkovskij. Sculpting in Time: Reflections on the Cinema. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991.
Karsten Witte. Lachende Erben, Toller Tag. Filmkomödie im Dritten Reich. Berlin: Vorwerk 8, 1995.