Professor Núria Triana-Toribio, Professor of Hispanic Studies in the Department of Modern Languages is to be the keynote speaker at a conference entitled ‘Audiovisualtopia’ in Madrid, from 23-24 October 2015. The conference is on the ‘Contemporary Screen Scene’ and is hosted by Saint Louis University.
Nuria’s talk is entitled ‘Awards Culture: Spanish Cinema and the Rise of the Prize’, and looks at The Goya prizes, the Spanish equivalent of the Oscars. Some critics have argued that the Academia guides Spanish cinema through a narrow path, elevating certain types of filmmaking and ignoring others, claiming it is an institution for branding cinema and generating a particular type of Spanish film culture.
Nuria will address how it befits national film institutions and professional lobbies to encourage consistent and non-contradictory (and yet diverse) national cinema discourses, particularly if these enable transnational distribution or if these images are useful in nation/community building ventures. She will then focus on how we could question the purpose of using the same instruments of control and branding on behalf of other nations and territories. For this, she will engage with the Goya a la Mejor Película Iberoamericana category of the awards. Is this prize a declaration of possession? Is this a hangover of post-colonial sentiment? Is it a valid claim to exerting authority over Latin American film cultures in the field of cinema by the Academia? Or is it something else entirely? She aims to encourage questioning the awards culture in which cinema is immersed.
Full details of the conference can be found at: www.audiovisualtopia2015.wordpress.com/