Transitions
Cinematic Dimensions of 'Passage'
28th International Bremen Film Conference – 22 to 25 May 2024
For as long as film has existed, it has grappled with processes of transition and change: in history, in personal identity, in cinema culture itself. This year, we’ll be marking the 50th anniversary of Kommunalkino Bremen by looking at the myriad transitions that cinema has gone through or represented on screen, from filmic depictions of trans people, to the relation between film history and broader historical turning points, to shifting trends in film culture and aesthetics.
Transitions are integral to film. Cuts and dissolves are used to move from one shot to another. Films let us experience change both over time and space and in characters’ inner worlds. And the meaning of what they show changes depending on their choice of cinematic devices. That is one factor among many that makes film such a fascinating medium for representing the most different transitions. The conference will explore these questions from very different angles, examining both film characters’ transitional relationships to body, gender, imagination and experiences of otherness, and transitions in film history, such as the shift from silent film to sound film. The renewals of film cultures resulting from such transitions can also assume political dimensions: for instance, in cinematic reflections on the breakup of Yugoslavia, indigenous filmmaking in Canada or on hybrid genres.
The lectures and film screenings at the International Bremen Film Conference invite an international audience to explore the many facets of transitions in film and discover the connections between aesthetic, personal, cultural and historical changes.
Tatiana Astafeva, Rasmus Greiner and Winfried Pauleit from the University of Bremen, in cooperation with CITY 46 / Kommunalkino Bremen
