(9 June 2017) The "Innovations and Tensions: Italian Cimema and Media in a Global Context Conference" takes place today in Rome. A two-day programme at the American University in Rome (via Pietro Roselli, 4), which also celebrates the fifth year of the Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, will bring together international scholars of Italian cinema and global media. The current and diverse proliferation and rapid transformation of cinema and media - from television, to video installations, the digitalisation of films, mobile phones, social media, and web texts - urge scholars to elaborate new theories. The aim is to launch a debate on post-national cinema proposing Italy as a unifying geo-cultural site. There will be 160 speakers from major universities in France, Great Britain, Italy, Malta, the Czech Republic, Russia, Spain, Turkey, Argentina, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, and the United States. Their objective is to elaborate a multifaceted definition of Italian cinema, transcending the purely geo-ethnic boundaries of sea and land, and taking a step back from self-referential and self-celebratory cinematic experiences. The two-day conference was organised by Flavia Laviosa (Wellesley College, USA) and Catherine Ramsey-Portolano (The American University of Rome -AUR) in collaboration with Ryan Calabretta-Sajder (University of Arkansas, USA) with the support of Wellesley College, Intellect Publishing House and AUR, the Department of Communications and Social Research of the University of Rome, The University of San Marino, Wilfrid Laurier University (Canada) and the Dante Alighieri Association. (Red)

THE TALKS

The topics presented at the conference will be: the past and future of RAI, seriality in Italian and foreign fiction TV shows, web seriality, postcolonial intermediality, media, transmedia and social networks, video games, cinema and electronic arts, the cinema of Paolo Sorrentino, LGBTQ cinema and media, transnational identities, international co-productions, influence of Italian cinema on international cinema. In addition, cinema and politics, violence against women, women's violence, Anna Magnani, the great masters of Italian cinema, films about gender, Italian film festivals in the world, art and cinema, fashion, beauty and celebrities, subtitles and dubbing, and cinema studies. The conference will also focus on Italian directors by offering an academic reflection on diaspora cinema. The screening of the documentary "Blaxploitalian" which examines 100 years of black actor's careers in Italian cinema (2016) directed by the Italo-Ghanaian Fred Kuwornu will conclude the proceedings of the conference on Saturday, 10 June.