Newsletter no. 2 — September 2023

I/MA/C/S Conference

From 29 September to 1 October, the cinEXmedia partnership and the Laboratoire Cinémédias, in collaboration with the I/MA/C/S (International Master in Cinema Studies) network, will present the international conference “Ouvrir le dialogue: variations sur l’éducation à l’image” at the Université de Montréal and the Cinémathèque québécoise.

The goal of this conference is to discover how cinema, television and media arts are taught at the present moment around the world. With the support of the international I/MA/C/S network of seventeen universities, this event will seek out the views of experts with diverse experiences, practices and cultures. The film scholar André Gaudreault, who is also the co-director of cinEXmedia, will present the opening lecture on 29 September, in partnership with NECS (European Network for Cinema and Media Studies). The conference opens officially the following day.

For a more detailed description of the program, consult the event’s web page (in French only). On the topic of the I/MA/C/S network and its mission, you can also read an article by William Pedneault-Pouliot, a master’s student in cinema at the Université de Montréal under the I/MA/C/S program, who interviewed Sébastien Lévesque, a course instructor who is in charge of the I/MA/C/S program at Université de Montréal.

Jean-Luc Godard in Montreal

André Habib, a researcher and member of cinEXmedia, has supervised, with the support of the partnership, the restoration of videotapes of Jean-Luc Godard’s film classes at Concordia University in 1978. The giant of French cinema, who passed away last year, had been invited to Montreal by Serge Losique, then director of the Conservatory of Cinematographic Arts at Concordia, to present his research and ideas on film history.

Tonight, on 28 September, the Cinémathèque québécoise will present a recording of a discussion between Jean-Luc Godard and the film critic Serge Daney. Beginning the following day, as part of the I/MA/C/S program, three programs from the restoration project coordinated by André Habib will be presented at the Cinémathèque québécoise on 29 and 30 September and on 1 October. To conclude this series of events, on 1 October, André Habib will moderate a panel discussion on the project and Godard's Histoire(s) du cinéma.

To learn more about the restoration of the videotapes, you can consult this article (in French only) on the video platform Zoom Out of the magazine Hors Champ, of which André Habib is the director.

Exhibition: L’espace des plateformes

From 21 September to 8 December cinEXmedia is co-presenting at the Université de Montréal the exhibition L’espace des plateformes as part of the conference “Plateformes et usages: cinéma, télévision, jeu vidéo et création numérique.” The exhibition’s curators, Christine Bernier, Marta Boni and Zaira Zarza, are professors in the Département d’histoire de l’art et d’études cinématographiques at the Université de Montréal.

L’espace des plateformes encourages visitors to explore artists’ creative practices as well as certain specific uses in the private sphere of contemporary digital platforms. It offers an opportunity to reflect on the power dynamics, the still-present inequalities in access to digital technology and the deleterious effects of our unbridled consumption and irresponsible rush to equipment with a short lifespan.

Screening of the Film V F C

cinEXmedia will present the feature film V F C by Charles-Stéphane Roy, featuring the author-composer-actress Elisapie Isaac. The screening will be held on 12 October at the Cinéma Moderne and will be followed by a discussion with the film’s producer-director. The people behind V F C have created a unique experience of “adaptive cinema,” as they call it, in which the soundtrack accompanying the film changes according to the cerebral activity of the viewer.

Each viewer must thus watch the film wearing headphones. An electroencephalogram then transmits the data it gathers to a server which analyses it and combines it with pre-defined soundtracks before sending individualized musical pieces back to the viewer.

To learn more about this innovative concept, you can read on our site an interview with the filmmaker by our research assistant Hugo Samson.

Lights, Camera, Action: Brain & Cinema

On 13 October, at the Cinéma du Musée, cinEXmedia will co-present, with the FNC and the Montreal Neurological Institute, the immersive documentary Samsara (2023) by Lois Patiño. The film tells the story of a young monk who meets a boy who regularly reads aloud from a Tibetan scripture to an old woman on the brink of death. Their spiritual exchange turns into a journey into the first stages of reincarnation — a sensory, dreamlike odyssey between Laos and Zanzibar.

After the screening, we will present a recorded interview with Lois Patiño by the researcher and executive director of cinEXmedia, Santiago Hidalgo, who will then moderate a panel discussion on slow cinema and its effects on the brain, with the participation of researchers Ana Inés Ansaldo (researcher in neuroscience of communication and aging at Université de Montréal and the Centre de recherche de l’Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal), Sarah Lippé (researcher in neurodevelopment at Université de Montréal and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center), and Isabelle Raynauld (codirector of the cinEXmedia partnership, Université de Montréal).

Take part in a study

Sleepers! Are you at least 18 years of age? We would like to know your habits around the use of media before you sleep. This questionnaire, to be completed online, will take five to ten minutes of your time. Your answers will enable us to better understand the impact of audiovisual content on people’s well-bring and sleep hygiene. This project has been evaluated by the ethics committee on research in education and psychology of the Université de Montréal. ·

Online exhibition

The Groupe de recherche sur l’avènement et la formation des identités médiatiques (GRAFIM), a research infrastructure of the Laboratoire Cinémédias just like the cinEXmedia partnership, has supervised the digitizing of the exhibition Rétro-lucidité, which was presented last year at the Université de Montréal. You can now rediscover this project online, on the re-use of former video game practices (retrogaming).

A look back on a past event

We continue to disseminate information about our recent events with a new article on conference co-organised by the cinEXmedia partnership. This text, by Hugo Samson, on the conference “Réinventer la scène. Innovation, création, diffusion,” which was held at the Grande Bibliothèque of the BAnQ in June, was just posted on our website.

See our previous newsletter

Last August, we sent out our very first newsletter. We've now posted it on our website, in our new "Newsletter - Archives" section. Future newsletters, including this one, will be added shortly after we send them out.

Kinorino's Kino Night

The Kinorino festival has been a cinEXmedia partner from its early days. Founded last year by Vincent Ménard and Jérémie Gravel, two bachelor’s students in cinema at the Université de Montréal, the organization will present the first screening evening of its “Kino Project” at Ausgang Plaza in Montreal, tonight, on 28 September.

The event's organization is inspired by Kino Montréal, but differs from theirs as it is limited to university film students: participants must produce a tailor-made short film in less than a week under specific constraints for it to be shown at an evening screening.

To learn more about the genesis of the project and its connections to cinEXmedia, see the interview with Vincent Ménard and Jérémie Gravel by our research assistant Lou Andrysiak.

Double Book Launch

A double book launch open to the public was held at offices of the Groupe intervention video, in Montreal, last night, on 27 September.

Marta Boni, professor in the Département d’histoire de l’art et d’études cinématographiques at the Université de Montréal and member of CINEXMEDIA, presented her volume Perdre pied—Le principe d’incertitude dans les séries (Presses universitaires François-Rabelais). Stéfany Boisvert, professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal, moderated a discussion with the author at this event.

Rosanna Maule, professor of cinema at Concordia University, presented her essay Sustainable Resilience in Women’s Film and Video Organizations (Routledge). The Ph.D. candidate in feminist film studies Ylenia Olibet discussed Maule’s text with her at the event.