THE OPEN BOAT: CINEMA AND THE MARITIME IMAGINARY
March 6 & 7, 2015
Coppola Theater, San Francisco State University
Ranging from documentary to essay film, fiction to propaganda, this Cinema Course & Film Program examines how human engagement with the ocean has changed through history and how such engagement has been represented by cinema. The course approaches the ocean as an important zone for cross-cultural contamination since early forms of colonialism to the rise of globalization. Our aim is to discuss the cartographies of power historically related to the ocean and unfold possible connections between the slave ship and the recent migration flows; to examine how the ship has served as a mobile but unstable metaphor for labor, leisure, politics, and economy of modern and contemporary life.
Schedule
Friday, March 6
4pm - 4:30pm: Introduction
4:30 – 6:20pm: Film screening and Discussion
Interview with John Akomfrah (9 min)
Handsworth songs, by John Akomfrah. UK, 2011 (Excerpt)
The Nine Muses, by John Akomfrah. Ghana/UK, 2011, 90 min.
6:20pm - 7pm: Dinner break
7pm – 8:45pm: Film screening and Discussion
Stromboli, by Roberto Rossellini. Italy, 1950. (Excerpt)
Leviathan, by Véréna Paravel & Lucien Castaing-Taylor.USA, 2012, 87 min.
Saturday, March 7
10am: Opening remarks, Discussion cont.
10:20am: Film Screening and Discussion
Film Socialisme, by Jean-Luc Godard. France, 2010. (Excerpt)
Proud Little Ship, by Vitold Bordzilovsky. URSS, 1966, 17min. (Exerpt)
Battleship Potemkin, by Sergei Eisenstein. URSS, 1925. (Excerpt)
Land in Anguish, by Glauber Rocha. Brazil, 1967. (Excerpt)
Master and Commander: The Far side of The world, by Peter Weir. USA, 2003. (Excerpt)
1942: Conquest of Paradise, by Ridley Scott. France/Spain, 1992. (Excerpt)
11:20am: Film Screening and Discussion
Steal Goes to Sea, by John E.Lewis. UK, 17min
At Sea, by Peter Hutton. USA, 2007, 60min
1:45pm: Film Screening and Discussion
The Forgotten Space, by Noël Burch & Allan Sekula. Netherlands/Austria, 2010, 112min
4:15pm: Concluding Remarks (Summary)
Readings
- Édouard Glissant, “The Open Boat”, in Poetics of Relation, University of Michigan Press (2010)
- Allan Sekulla, A Film About the Sea: Notes on Allan Sekula and Noël Burch’s The Forgotten Space, Centre for European Studies (2011)
- Paul Gilroy, “The Black Atlantic, Harvard University Press (1993)