SIG Newsletters

• Read the latest SIG Newsletter (Issue 6, June 2022) here. 
• Access past issues here.

Reports on SIG Activities

• January 2019.

Amateur Cinema

Convenor: Dr Anna Mostrescu-Mayes (University of Cambridge)
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The SIG will introduce scholars, researchers, and students of amateur cinema studies to wide-ranging and cross-disciplinary evaluations of key histories and theories of amateur media production, distribution and reception.

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Animation

Convenors:  Malcolm Cook (University of Southampton), Sam Summers (Middlesex University) and Jemma Gilboy (Nottingham Trent University)​
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There is now a growing community of researchers investigating animation in diverse ways. This special interest group represents and supports all researchers working on related topics, including those undertaking practice-based research.

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Archives and Archival Methods

Convenors: Llewella Chapman (University of East Anglia), James Fenwick (Sheffield Hallam University) and Matt Melia(Kingston University)
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This SIG aims to bring together researchers, archivists, and practitioners to discuss archival methods, collections, preservation, cataloguing, education, and insights. The SIG encompasses a range of theoretical approaches to the use of archives, with the aim of furthering, promoting, and discussing film, television and media archives and archival research (of all forms) across disciplines.

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British Cinema and Television

Convenors: Melanie Williams (University of East Anglia), David Forrest (University of Sheffield), James Leggott(Northumbria University), Steven Roberts (University of the West of England)

This SIG aims to provide a collegial forum for scholarly interests in British cinema and television cultures, both domestically as well as in their broader transnational and global contexts. The SIG operates within an expansive range of critical, theoretical, methodological and pedagogic parameters and aims to foster work that significantly advances the field of study.

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Colour and Film

Convenors: Sarah Street (University of Bristol) and Liz Watkins (University of Leeds).

The BAFTSS Colour and Film SIG is an international forum of scholars, filmmakers, archivists and film conservation specialists.​ The SIG offers a space in which to discuss questions that arise through the study of colour, its technologies, theories, philosophies and their historical contexts in cinema. Utilising the opportunities offered by seminars, screenings, conferences, research projects and publications the group aims to facilitate discussion and collaboration on Colour and Film.

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Documentary

Convenors: Alisa Lebow (University of Sussex) and Silke Panse (University for the Creative Arts)

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East Asian Screen Cultures

​Convenors: Kiki Tianqi Yu (QMUL), Victor Fan (KCL), Ruby Cheung (Southampton), Lin Feng (Leicester)
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This SIG provides scholars and research students with an active platform to exchange ideas, generate debates, and form collaborations on various aspects of East Asian Screen related studies. We encourage and facilitate research conversations on diverse paradigms and approaches, to enhance our understanding of histories, aesthetics, theories, philosophies, practices and industries of cinema, television and other screen-based media, within East Asian countries and regions, and through trans-regional comparative perspectives.

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Essay Film

​Convenors: Romana Turina (Arts University Bournemouth), Jill Daniels (University of East London)

The practice and formal analysis of the Essay Film form within the field of film, television and screen studies is an established academic area that is developing quickly with impactful contribution in the way the moving image is studied today. This group focuses on building on these foundations and exploring how the study of the essay film practice can develop within BAFTSS. The group aims to disseminate research and evaluate how the essay film can contribute new knowledge to the field of film studies in terms of its novelty, significance and narrative impact. The group also explores innovative methods of academic dissemination, public engagement and impact.

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Euro-Bollywood

Convenors: Rajinder Dudrah (Birmingham City University), Gyorgyi Vajdovich (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest), Bernhard Fuchs (University of Vienna), Monia Acciari (De Montfort University)

This SIG aims to bring together for the first time pan-European and internationally based scholars and cultural partners to explore the histories, networks and filmic representations pertaining to Euro-Bollywood (i.e. ideas of Europe in Bollywood and Bollywood in Europe), to explore and create new knowledge and understanding, including conceptual frameworks through the interaction of different areas across film, media, cultural studies and related disciplines.

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Film and Philosophy

Convenors: Davina Quinlivan (Kingston University) and Dominic Lash (University of Bristol)

The Film and Philosophy SIG has members who are PhD students, professors and practitioners from universities in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and America. This reflects the burgeoning community of scholars who are bringing film and philosophy together in productive and radical ways. The SIG is not affiliated to any journal or institution, but rather is a forum for scholars and practitioners who are interested in exploring the philosophical potential of individual films, filmmakers, and the medium of film itself.


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Film/Making Education

Convenors: Carmen Herrero (Manchester Metropolitan), Robert Munro (Queen Margaret), Chris Nunn (Greenwich)
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The Film/making Education Special Interest Group is designed to foster dialogue and collaboration across all levels of film education, including schools, colleges and higher education institutions. The SIG aims to facilitate, produce and disseminate research into film education which can highlight good pedagogic practices and in turn, help to foster a more coherent film/making education strategy for the development of emerging UK talent. 

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French and Francophone Cinema

Convenors: Kate Ince (University of Birmingham) and​ Ginette Vincendeau (Kings College London)
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Over 200 French and Francophone films are distributed each year, making this one of the world’s most important national cinemas, while French television series are increasingly reaching global distribution. This SIG is partnered by the only journal world-wide devoted entirely to French and Francophone audio-visual media, French Screen Studies. Launched in 2000, the journal provides academics and students with a consistent quality of scholarly investigation across the full breadth of the subject. 

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German Screen Studies

Convenors: Helen Hughes (University of Surrey), Elizabeth Ward (University of Leeds)

The German Screen Studies SIG emerges out of the German Screen Studies Network, an independent international network founded in 2011 as a platform for research and public engagement activities relating to German-language screen media. The BAFTSS group acts as the GSSN’s principal UK research forum, providing a focus at the BAFTSS conference and related events for national and international scholarship on German-language screen media.

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Horror Studies

Convenors: Kate Egan (Northumbria University), Shellie McMurdo (University of Hertfordshire), Laura Mee (University of Hertfordshire)​​


Since the pioneering historical research of scholars such as Peter Hutchings and Mark Jancovich in the 1990s, horror film, television and screen studies in the UK and Ireland has grown and developed rapidly. The BAFTSS Horror Studies SIG aims to bring together UK and Irish researchers studying horror across this wide range of disciplines and approaches to exchange diverse ideas, to facilitate collaboration and to form a supportive and creative network.

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LGBTQ+ Screen Studies

Convenor: Daniel Sheppard (Birmingham City University)

This SIG brings together scholars and practitioners with an interest in research, whether practice-based or otherwise, that relates to LGBTQ+ issues. The SIG seeks to create a professional network where peers and colleagues can exchange ideas and collaborate on future projects, building a safe and inclusive support system. In building such a safe and inclusive support system, the SIG acknowledges the diverse experiences that the LGBTQ+ acronym bands together and will give due regard to each and every group encompassed, further committing to platform those who are more often marginalised.

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Performance and Stardom

Convenors: Julie Lobalzo Wright (University of Warwick), Leanne Weston (University of Warwick)

While stardom has become a significant and well-established part of Film Studies, the field has expanded to consider areas beyond the initial focus on Hollywood stardom to examine new areas including performance, ageing, and European stardom, and into new media, including television. There is a diversity within the study of stardom and performance that this network of individuals represents through their already published works and future projects that this SIG would support through communication and exchanges for scholarship and teaching.

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Practice Research

Convenors: Charlotte Crofts (University of the West of England) and Shreepali Patel (University of the Arts, London)
 
Practice Research within the field of film, television and screen studies in an established academic area which has demonstrated an impactful contribution to the field, both within the REF and research council funded projects. This group focuses on building on these foundations, exploring how screen media practice research can be developed within BAFTSS. The group aims to disseminate practice research and evaluate how practice can contribute new knowledge to the field in terms of its significance, originality and rigour. The group also explores innovative methods of academic dissemination and peer review; as well as the potential of practice research for public engagement and impact. The SIG is linked to Screenworks and to the Journal of Media Practice.

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Psychoanalysis and Film

Convenors: Alice Haylett Bryan (Kings College London), Ben Tyrer (Middlesex)

This group focuses on developing discussions regarding relevant and adjacent concepts such as psychoanalysis, psychosocial studies, affect, trauma, subjectivities, and (post)memory in relation to a variety of screen media. The group aims to share networks and resources in further multidisciplinary research as well as practice-based knowledge.

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Science Fiction and Fantasy

Screen Industries

Convenors: Stacey Abbott (Roehampton), Mark Bould (UWE Bristol), Craig Ian Mann (Sheffield Hallam)

Historically, the study of Science Fiction and Fantasy has been dominated by prose fiction, although that is changing, and the SFF scholarship that appears in screen studies often demonstrates very different concerns. The principal aim of this SIG is to further connect these communities, fostering communication and collaboration in order to establish and maintain SFF studies as a prominent sub-field of screen studies, and vice versa.

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Convenors: Andrew Spicer (University of the West of England), Kate Nash (University of Leeds), Steve Presence (University of the West of England)

The Screen Industries SIG works to reflect, promote and advance historical and contemporary industry-focused research within film, television and screen studies by providing a forum for interdisciplinary communication and exchange, and a platform for the dissemination of cutting edge scholarship. ‘Industry-focused research’ is understood in broad terms.

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Screening Sex

Convenors: Darren Kerr and Donna Peberdy (both Solent University, Southampton)​
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The Screening Sex Special Interest Group aims to continue and extend the work emergent from the academic blog and associated book series, Screening Sex. Commissioning and publishing short research articles, opinion pieces, interviews and book reviews on a range of topics related to sex on screen and sexual cultures, screeningsex.com has quickly become a popular and valuable public-facing academic forum exploring the politics of sex on screen. This SIG builds on the valuable work of existing contributors, extend the research network, supports the development of original work and invests in its contributors and members in order to produce and support activities that continue to highlight the value of sex on screen, in culture and in society.

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Transnational Film and Television

Convenors: Yael Friedman (University of Portsmouth), Maryam Ghorbankarimi (University of Lancaster)

There is growing interest in the transnational in the many areas that constitute film and television studies, and academics have found it increasingly fruitful to conceptualise their work using a transnational framework. We have seen a proliferation of courses, publications, and conferences that engage with the transnational, and this Special Interest Group aims to contribute to this research landscape. We aim to bring together researchers and offer a platform for discussion, debate, networking, collaborations, dissemination of resources, and promotion of events and publications.

Find out more.