ABOUT

The advent of digital technology in the realm of filmmaking and cinematic praxis has not only changed the art and poetics of filmic production but has also penetrated the sphere of historical, philosophical, institutional, and theoretical discourse. The pervasive digitalization of cinema in contemporary times, therefore, should go beyond technological and democratized advancement affecting film practices. This is an engaging moment in cinematic discourse that is birthing contending theoretical stakes and vicissitudes from media critics, film historians, academicians, film practitioners, and cultural theorists. The utilization of digital technology, may it be in commercial cinema, independent films or other media texts, has been a pivotal nexus that generated a reframing of representational and theoretical positions both in the field of cinematic poetics and knowledge production.

The conference aims to gather cultural scholars, film historians, media critics, film practitioners, and academicians who have done scholarly works on the subject of digital cinema and other modes of investigation related to the theme. The conference aims to provide a venue for scholars and specialists in the field of cinematic and cultural discourse in order to re-examine and revaluate existing fields of inquiry, theoretical foundations and researches. Encompassing the national and globalized landscape on film practice, the conference also aims to cartographize the emerging trends and existing scholarly endeavors to be able to chart the future directions of film institutions, cinematic practice and theorizing.

It is without a doubt that the digitalization of cinema has spurred contending debates and differing positionalities among film audiences, scholars, film historians and media practitioners. It is within these discursive lines and theoretical renderings that the nodal points of the conference theme –“ruptures,” “departures,” and “futures”—can be contextualized, re-examined and mapped out. The emergence of digital cinema both in the national and global arena of cinematic and cultural production can be seen simultaneously as a significant period of junctures and disjunctures.

Digital divide, as a terminology and concept, does not simply refer to the aesthetic chasm sparked by the arrival of digital technology in cinema but rather as a moment of rupture that has stimulated historical and ideological critiques from varying vantage points and counter-points. The digitalization of cinema has created a protuberance on how the development of film—as historical artifact and social discourse—should be understood and analyzed. It has been a site and sight of endless departures ranging from aesthetic experimentations, reframing of film historizations to the rethinking of existing modes of film production.

The digitalization of cinema is an inherent reality that should be faced by scholars and practitioners of the field in order to traverse and envision the futures of cinema. The investigation of digital cinema might raise more questions than answers. But such is the path and world of cinema—it has no singular and homogenous narrative. The project of cinematic discourse has multiple futures. Thus, this conference would function as an arena of amalgamation and the crystallization of contending visions for the “futures” of cinema.