Cinema, Modernity and Modernism

30 November to 3 December 2010

University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

The XVth Biennial Conference of the Film and History Association of Australia and New Zealand will be held at the University of New South Wales between Tuesday the 30th of November and Friday the 3rd December 2010.

The Film and History Conference provides an opportunity for international scholars, archivists, and filmmakers to present their thoughts on recent debates and events in the fields of film history, history and film, national and transnational cinemas, film theory, film practice, and the social and cultural significance of cinema.

The central theme of the 2010 conference is Cinema, Modernity and Modernism.  Over the past two decades, some of the most exciting research into film and cinema history has examined how the medium and the institution helped to define and mediate the experience of modernity and modernization.  This perspective has revealed the previously overlooked extent to which film informed and shaped modernist aesthetics.  The topic is therefore relevant to the study of literary and artistic modernism more broadly.

Rachel Ward to open the XVth Biennial Film and History Conference

We are delighted to announce that Rachel Ward will be opening the XVth Biennial Conference of the Film and History Association of Australia and New
Zealand.

Rachel has had an extensive and varied career both in front of and behind the camera. While she has won a number of awards as an actor, Rachel now focuses on writing and directing.

Rachel won the Australian Critics' Circle Award for her short films, The Big House and Martha’s New Coat. The AFI awarded The Big House Best Short
Fiction Film in 2001, and Martha’s New Coat was a Dendy Award finalist in 2003.

In 2009, she wrote and directed Beautiful Kate. The film was nominated for 10 AFI Awards, including Best Picture.