Call for Contributions - Experimental Fiction Filmmaking Conference

Call for Contributions – Experimental Fiction Filmmaking Conference

17^th–18^th July 2025, University of Salford, Media City UK.

 

Proposal submission deadline: Monday 31 March

 

The third Experimental Fiction Filmmaking Conference aims to explore and define the boundaries of Experimental Fiction Filmmaking (EFF) by bringing together practice-as-research (PaR) academics, film scholars, industry professionals and independent filmmakers for a series of workshops, presentations and screenings.

 

EFF draws upon traditions in cinema, experimental film, art cinema and expanded cinema, but also specific philosophical concerns and practitioner insights and sensibilities. EFF is not tied to one particular movement or period of cinema history, some of its varied histories can be traced back to the modernist period in the early 20th century, for example the early works of Surrealism in cinema, photogenie and the work of Jean Epstein and Louis Delluc, or the experiments in montage of Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov. More contemporary examples can be found in the work of Agnes Varda, Vera Chytilova, William Greaves, Lars von Trier, Claire Denis, Werner Herzog, Andrei Tarkovsky, Harmony Korine, Luis Bunuel, Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Tsai Ming Liang, Wong Kar Wai, Philippe Grandrieux, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Mike Figgis, and many others. However, the aim of this event is not to re-reclassify the history of cinema based on narrative or formal markers, but rather to establish and develop a set of experimental methods and approaches to fiction film production, which will expand on the creative potential of cinema and provide guidance and inspiration to both established and emerging filmmakers, in a rapidly developing technological context. Alongside this practical experimentation, the event asks how experimental fiction filmmaking might enable new modes of critical engagement and interpretation with the processes developed and the films made, within their theoretical, philosophical and ethical contexts.

 

Film fiction continues to be a form of storytelling under constant development, whether in terms of exploration of film’s unique audio-visual possibilities of expression and communication, or new processes afforded to filmmakers through changing cultural and technological contexts. Therefore, film fiction can benefit from new conceptualisations of storytelling that are rooted both in the specificity of film as a  medium, and the way different contexts and processes might be brought to film anew. Practice-as-research in film is a useful approach to developing such new conceptual approaches.

 

Some of the questions that the INEFF Conference hopes to address include but are not limited to:

 

1. What are the creative possibilities and boundaries of experimental fiction filmmaking?
2. Which processes of collaboration can inform novel and meaningful experimental fiction film outputs?
3. How might new technology shape new narrative fiction forms?
4. How might experimental fiction filmmaking lead to novel modes of critical engagement and interpretation?
5. How might we define Experimental Fiction Filmmaking?

 

INEFF 2025 aims to continue the conversations from previous iterations of the conference.

 

Proposals may consider ways in which an experimental fiction film practice:

• Invents new filmic concepts and processes.
• Offers emancipation through the disruption of taken-for-granted industry norms and standards.
• Redefines the grammar of film.
• Subverts established narrative conventions of cinema, and privileges the emergence of spontaneous moments and structures over prefigured narratives.
• Privileges care and collaboration over power and hierarchies.
• Mobilises theory into practice.
• Is a termite art form, which privileges aesthetic innovation over the gloss of perfection.
• Plays with duration and running time in ways that sit between the traditions of short film and the feature.
• Operates as an independent or low-budget art form. How might we reconsider crew roles and responsibilities?

 

We also welcome proposals that seek to expand understanding of EFF in directions that are not articulated in the prompts above.

 

We welcome proposals for PaR statements (1000-2000 words) accompanied by audio-visual practice and/or documentation, short papers (2500-3500 words), workshops or performances (up to 30 minutes) and installations (negotiable).

 

PaR statements and papers will be published on the INEFF.org website ahead of the event, and will inform a five-minute live verbal summary as part of a thematic panel, followed by a critical discussion during the event. Where relevant, the accompanying practice will be included in a dedicated screening during the event ahead of the thematic panel, and, with your permission, can also be included on the website alongside your statement.

 

Proposal submission deadline: Monday 31 March

Please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/bUiK8CpahhdT8Tz27

 

Submission of full statements and papers (upon proposal acceptance) by Monday 16 June

Conference in MediaCityUK, Manchester: 17 and 18 July 2025

 

Visit www.ineff.org for more information. For any enquiries, please contact us on ineffsymposium@gmail.com

 

If you would like to submit standalone EFF practice to our INEFF Festival (taking place on 19 July at Cultplex Cinema in Manchester), you can do so at https://filmfreeway.com/INEFF (late deadline 27 June)