Congratulations to the many A/CA members who are presenting their research at this year’s Film and Media Studies Association of Canada (FMSAC) Annual Conference, May 27–29, 2025, in the Department of Film & Media at Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario). Details about A/CA members’ events, collaborative workshops, panels, and individual paper presentations are below.
The conference theme for 2025 is “Autonomies: Screening Film and Media Independence.” The final full schedule is linked here and will be available in print at the conference registration table.
A/CA SPECIAL EVENTS
We are extremely proud to share that A/CA Project’s Co-Director, Mike Zryd (York University), will present the 2025 Martin Walsh Memorial Lecture on the topic “Autonomies in Film and Media in Canada: Institutional Ambivalences.” Martin Walsh was among the founders of FMSAC-ACÉCM in 1976 and an esteemed scholar of avant-garde film practices who taught at the University of Western Ontario and whose work, in particular The Brechtian Aspect of Radical Cinema (1981), made a huge impact on film studies. The lecture will be held on Tuesday, 3:30 pm–5:00 pm, in Room 222, and is followed by the annual members’ reception and book launch. Join us at the Broom Factory from 6:00 pm–10:00 pm.
Debbie Ebanks Schlums (York University) and Sonya Mwambu (York University) have a screen-based performance-event “Theorizing Black Diasporic Archival Practice” on Tuesday, 12:00 pm–1:30 pm, Art & Media Lab 124.
Desire Lines, the video program curated for our most recent Educational Guide, by A/CA members Alanna Thain and Ylenia Olibet (MIRL at McGill) in collaboration with Groupe Intervention Vidéo in Montreal and VUCAVU, will be screened during the “Desire Lines: Intimate Autonomies in 50 Years of Groupe Intervention Vidéo Workshop” organized by Alanna and Ylenia, on Thursday, 2:45 pm–4:15 pm, Room 329.
A/CA PRE-CONSTITUTED WORKSHOPS
Wednesday, May 28
Session DW: Autonomy and Complex Media Archives | 8:30 am–10:00 am | Room 222
Sara Diamond (OCAD), Jeremy Heil (Queen’s), Eric Kaltman (University of Alberta), Jen Kennedy (Queen’s), Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Susan Lord (Queen’s), Mikhel Proulx (Queen’s), and Danuta Sierhuis (Queen’s)
Session EW: Precarious Autonomies: A Workshop on Contemporary Feminist Collaborative Media Practices | 10:15 am–11:45 am | Room 336
Roberta (Edem) Abbeyquaye (Queen’s), Dorit Naaman (Queen’s), Brenda Longfellow (York University), Liz Miller (Concordia), and Kristy Snell (Concordia)
Thursday, May 29
Session HW: Interdependence Against Autonomy | 1:00 pm–2:30 pm | Room 336
Fan Wu (Queen’s)
Session JW1: Desire Lines: Intimate Autonomies in 50 years of Groupe Intervention Vidéo | 2:45 pm–4:15 pm | Room 329
Alanna Thain (McGill), Ylenia Olibet (Concordia)
Session JW2: Witches, Spectres, and Incantations: Revisiting the Witch Institute | 2:45 pm–4:15 pm | Room 336
Eric Chalfant (Queen’s), Tamara de Szegheo Lang (Queen’s), Naomi Okabi (Queen’s), Emily Pelstring (Queen’s), Jenn E Norton (Queen’s), Dan Vena (Queen’s)
PRESENTATIONS BY A/CA MEMBERS
Tuesday, May 27
Session A1: Canadian Cinema History | 9:00 am–10:30 am | Room 329
Daniel Keyes (Chair), UBC Okanagan, “The NFB’s Home Town Newspaper (Parker 1948): Analogue and Digital Dissonances for Hinterland Fantasies of Civil Setter Sovereign Spaces”
Session A3: Anticolonial Cinema | 9:00 am–10:30 am | Room 312
Malini Guha (Chair), Carleton University, “Making Cinematic Kin: Solidarity Politics in the Work of Filipa César and Suneil Sanzgiri”
Session B2: Canadian Film & Television | 10:45 am–12:15 am | Room 329
Charles Acland (Chair), Concordia University
Kathryn Armstrong, Concordia University, “Returns on Cinema: The Subsidization of Canada’s Cinematic New Wave Through Television”
Liz Clarke and Peter Lester, Brock University, “Archiving a ‘Guilded Age’”: The Directors Guild of Canada and Canadian Film Studies”
Paul Moore, Toronto Metropolitan University, “The Cineplex Concept: From Toronto’s Multicultural Film Bazaar to Global Post-Modern Non-Place”
Jennifer VanderBurgh, St. Mary’s University, “A Banal Disruptor: Early Instructional TV in Nova Scotia”
Session C3: Gender & Media Studies | 1:30 pm–3:00 pm | Room 329
Kyler J. Chittick, University of Alberta, “Anonymity and Becoming-Imperceptible on the Lower East Side: Gender and Gentrification in Desperately Seeking Susan”
Wednesday, May 28
Session D2: Ecocinema | 8:30 am–10:00 am | Room 342
Kelly Egan (Chair), Trent University, “Tracing Latent Blues: Towards an Eco-Feminist Aesthetics of Analogue Film”
Zoë Anne Laks, Concordia University, “Seeding Vegetal Sovereignty: Plant-Based Witches and the Horrors of Gardening in The Manor”
Session G1: Catastrophies of Time: Decomposition in Film and Media Studies I Wednesday, 2:45 pm–4:15 pm I Room 329
Matthew I. Thompson (Chair), York University, “The Garden Machine: AI as Environmental Archivist”
Mary Hegedus, York University, “When Nature Returns: Decay and Regeneration of the Archives in the Films of Bill Morrison”
Janine Marchessault, York University, “AI as Infinite Archive in They Shall Not Grow Old”
Jessica Mulvogue, University of Saint Andrews, “Catastrophic Aesthetics: Immersive Screen Media, Environmental Crisis, and Aesthetic Experience”
Session G2: Archives & Collectives | 2:45 pm–4:15 pm I Room 342
Andew Bailey, Concordia University, “Super Sonic Saves the World: Maddy Thorson’s Kaizo ROM Hacks as Counter-Archival Practice”
Thursday, May 29
Session H1: LGBTQ+ II | 1:00 pm–2:30 pm | Room 312
Mary Bunch and Dolleen Tisawii’ashii Manning (Co-chairs), York University/Queens University, “Fabulating Worlds”
Session H2: Media & Technology | 1:00 pm–2:30 pm | Room 342
Aaron Tucker (Chair), Memorial University, “White Faces, Black Eyes: Faciality Within Facial Recognition Technologies”
Simone White, York University, “Movie Magic: The Preservation of Practical Effects in the Digital Landscape of Cinema”
Session H3: Unseen Narratives: Sound, Image, and the Politics of Found Footage Cinema I 1:00 pm–2:30 pm | Room 329
Andrew Burke (Co-chair), University of Winnipeg, “Channeling The Peak Experience: Entering the New Age through the Goodwill”