Conferences

CFP – 17th Annual SRN Conference – Adelaide, Australia

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The University of South Australia is pleased to announce a combined Screenwriting Research Network conference (SRN 2025), and Sightlines: Filmmaking in the Academy festival, to be held 17-20 September 2025 in Adelaide, Australia. As an innovation, SRN2025 is being held together with:https://www.aspera.org.au/sightlines-conference

Since 2006 the Screenwriting Research Network has hosted an annual conference to explore innovative approaches and exciting research into the history, theory, practice and teaching of screenwriting. This conference has travelled the world. Meanwhile, since 2014, Sightlines: Filmmaking in the Academy, a symposium/festival, has provided a forum to showcase and discuss screen-based ‘non-traditional’ research outputs. In 2024 we bring these two important communities and events together to explore crossovers and connections between theory, practice and education.

The theme for the conference-festival is Hyphen. The between. The connected. The hybrid. What does the hyphen mean to you? What does it mean for practice? How does it appear in industry? What are the theoretical implications? From the practitioner-academic to the writer-director, to the creative-critical, to the teaching-research nexus, to documentary-drama, to the anti-hero, to the non-representational, we are interested in creative, critical and hybrid responses to the theme hyphen.

In this conference-festival we are keen to embrace a range of submissions that reflect the outputs of scholars, reflective practitioners, and creative-practice researchers interested in screenwriting and screen production research, and showcase the full range of screenwriting and screen production that occurs within and between the higher education sector and industry, and across a breadth of platforms and methodologies.

We welcome submissions for in-person presentations in the following formats:

  • 20-minute papers:

Presentations can include exhibition of screen production research in-progress or discussion of screenplay works.

  • Pre-constituted panels:

Panels can include exhibition of screen production research in-progress or discussion of screenplay works.

  • Exhibition of creative screen production works:

Screen production outputs to be accompanied by a short practitioner introduction and/or post-screening talk.

  • Table read/performance of screenplays:

A screenplay or screenplay excerpt to be read/performed, accompanied by a short practitioner introduction.

 Submission guidelines:

For Panels, please include a 100-word outline of the panel topic or theme under discussion.

For Panels and Papers please send a 300-word abstract outlining each paper, 4-6 keywords, and the name and affiliation of each presenter/panellist. References are optional (maximum five). If you are citing sources, please use APA style. Please also include a short biography (100 words maximum) for each presenter/panellist.

For Exhibition of Screen Production Works, please submit a preview/excerpt of your completed creative work via online link.

For Table Read/Performance of screenplays, please submit a PDF.

For all screen works and scripts, please attach the accompanying information:

  • Title
  • Name of presenter and other relevant key creative contributors
  • Medium/format
  • Running time
  • A 300-word research statement that contextualises the work. This may be a statement that explicates the background, significance and contribution of the work. The statement should provide an understanding of the context of the work, the community of practice in which you are operating, any research question/s your work seeks to address, how the importance of the work can be understood, and/or how the impact of the work might be measured.
  • Please also include a short biography of the presenter (100 words maximum).

Deadline:

Please send your proposals (and any queries) to srn.sightlines2025@gmail.com by Friday 14 February 2025. Please await confirmation that your proposal has been received.

Conference organisers: Craig Batty, Michael Bentham, Carina Boehm, Sandy Cameron, Kath Dooley and Kim Munro.

Please note that a separate call for creative works to be featured in a future issue of Sightlines: Filmmaking in the Academy journal will follow the conference-festival.

16th Annual SRN Conference, September 2024 – Olomouc, Czech Republic

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The central theme for the 16th Annual SRN Conference in 2024 is

“A Conversation Beyond Script”

Through this theme we seek to encourage a broad exploration of dialogue and communication within the world of screenwriting and beyond. Although we emphasize the role of dialogue, monologues and polylogues in scripts, films and television, we also invite you to interpret this theme metaphorically, considering filmmakers’ discussions amongst cast and crew, amongst cultures, and other related topics.

Call for Papers – SRN Conference 2024

We accept the following:
Traditional 20-Minute Papers
(Proposal should include: Title, Author’s name, Affiliation, Contact details, 300 word abstract, 4-6 keywords, 150 word bio)
Pre-constituted Panels
(Proposal should include: Title of the panel, 100 word outline of the overall topic, Abstracts of 2-3 presentations following the abstract guidelines listed above).
Posters
(Proposal should include: Title, Author’s name, Affiliation, Contact details,300 word abstract, 4-6 keywords, 150 word bio)

Please send your proposals to srn2024@upol.cz

Submission Deadline: January 12, 2024. Always wait for confirmation that your proposal is registered.

For further enquiries, contact the Conference organizers: Jan Černík, Anna Šimáková, Filip Faja

Details and further information about the conference will be available online as the conference draws nearer.

The Conference website has been active since November 2023. Access it here.

SRN Early Career Researcher Event

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SRN Executive Committee is proud to invite Early Career Researchers and all members of the Screenwriting Research Network to a special event coordinated by our ECR Representative on the Executive Committee, Clarissa Miranda.
This year’s theme is the role of the academy (in undergraduate and graduate programs) in the development of screenwriters.
The Seminar is on the 20th of October, at 7AM (Australian Eastern Standard Time).
For those in Europe, Africa or the Americas the Seminar will be on the
19th of October, at 10pm (British Standard Time)
and 5pm (Eastern Daylight Time).
Our Speakers are: Margaret McVeigh, Head of Screenwriting & Contextual Studies at Griffith Film School (Australia), Balázs Zágoni, assistant professor, writer and film director from Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj (Romania), and Katherine Chediak Putnam, an emerging Brazilian-American director and screenwriter who also works in Australia as lecturer at Griffith Film School.

To be sent the Zoom link, please contact Clarissa Miranda on miranda.clarissa@gmail.com

SRN Awards 2022

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Presented at the Vienna Conference on Friday 23rd September 2022

The SRN Awards apply to eligible publications between June 2021 and May 2022 in two categories: Best Published Monograph, and Best Published Article. This includes peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. The Executive Council has worked throughout the year to consolidate the process by liaising with the expert jury, Professor Emeritus Tom Stempel, Associate Professor Eva Novrup Redvall, and Professor Carmen Sofia Brenes.  The SRN 2022 Awards winners were announced at the Vienna Conference by jury chair, Eva Novrup Redvall.

The SRN award for Best Monograph went to s. Anthony Mullins for his book Beyond the Hero’s Journey

 

The SRN award for Best Published Article went to Alison Pierce for “The Hidden Work of Women in Commissioning and Development in British Television Drama.”.

The SRN Executive Council would like to thank our judges for their time and commitment in reading all the submissions to come to these conclusions. We also want to thank all SRN members who submitted their published works to the competition. It is always an achievement to complete and article or book and have it published.

And of course, we offer the warmest congratulations to our winners, Anthony Mullins and Alison Pierce, for their outstanding works. We know they will be valuable for years to come to scholars and practitioners alike.

SRN 2023 Columbia, Missouri USA- Conference Call for Papers

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CALL FOR PAPERS
SRN 2023: GENDER AND THE FEMALE GAZE
September 20-23, 2023
The SRN (Screenwriting Research Network) is comprised of scholars, writers, and practice-based researchers. Started in 2006, the network currently has 700 members from 50+ countries. The aim of the annual International Conference is to continue, and expand, discussions around the screenplay and to strengthen a rapidly emerging, and global, research network. For more Information, please visit our website: http://screenwritingresearch.com
The 15th annual conference is organized by the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting and the School of Integrative Studies at Stephens College. The arts and humanities thrive in Columbia, Missouri, as dozens of on- and off-campus performances occur year-round at
Stephens, making the College one of Columbia’s premier centers for the performing arts.
Call for Papers:
Coming from a host college that focuses on female participation in the arts, the conference theme “Gender and the Female Gaze” wants to discuss the contributions of female screenwriters and the plethora of female-focused stories told on screen from the Silent Era  through the modern day. We encourage and embrace research that is around women of different ethnicities, religious and cultural backgrounds, and particularly hope to engage topics which relate to minority cultures within minority (and majority) communities. We are thus particularly interested in abstracts for presentations on (but not limited to) the following topics:
• Female screenwriters in silent cinema
• The influence of female writer(-directors) in contemporary culture
• Case studies on individual female screenwriter’s work
• Patterns in the women-centred stories that have been brought to the screen
• Historiography of manuals and screenwriting pedagogy where this reflects the work of female screenwriters
• Censorship of women’s stories and women’s writings
• Female screenwriters within writing partnerships
• The work of female screenwriters within script production (e.g. as showrunners, script editors or consultants)
• The question of a female voice within screenwriting
• The cultural influence of female characters created by female screenwriters
• The way life experiences led to the story told
• The challenges to their projects screenwriters often meet which speak to political, religious, gender or other barriers which may not apply to their male counterparts.
• The real-world impact of the script on its audiences and society.
• Examples of the ways women stepped out of traditional roles to work for change and an improved future for themselves and their communities through screenwriting.
• How female screen stories tackled issues of culture, religion, identity, gender and race
• How women have negotiated screen industry norms and practices, biases and social hurdles in order to tell their screen stories.
• Ways in which the professional woman’s everyday life (e.g. romance, marriage, parenthood status or citizenship) has been challenged or made more challenging because of her professional work, and vice versa.
• Issues caused by unreliable narrators of history
• Studies of cultural appropriation in screenwriting; cultural imperialism; cultural disconnect and/or discord which comes about through discourses of power
• Research into the ways in which money/ finance precludes certain stories from being told, even by successful screenwriters

Proposals for presentations beyond the theme of the conference are also welcome. The aim of the SRN being to foster research that rethinks the screenplay in relation to its histories, theories, values and creative practices, any proposal underpinned by such research will be considered. We expect papers on the broad topics of pedagogy, theory and practice – but even those may reflect the conference theme via the choices of writers chosen for inclusion in the study.
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Essential Information:
Deadline for abstracts: January 6, 2023
Acceptances: February 15th, 2023
Registration by: June 30, 2023
Submissions via email and contact:
Rosanne Welch
rwelch@stephens.edu

Submission of abstracts/proposals
Proposals/Abstracts can be sent as either a Word or PDF document: please indicate
“yourname_PROPOSALTYPE” (i.e. paper or panel) clearly in the file title and in the subject heading of your submission.
All presentations will be delivered in person, in English, and be underpinned by original research work being conducted by the presenter. Multiple presenters (max. 2) for co-written papers are allowed.

1.) Proposals for traditional 20-minute papers, followed by Q&A. They should include:
Title
Author’s name
Affiliation (university, independent, practitioner, etc.)
Contact details
Abstract (max. 300 words)
4-6 keywords
short bio (max 150 words), detailing your research activity, publications and/or screenwriting practice – and if the piece contributes to the conference theme please note.

2.) Proposals for Pre-constituted panels
Proposals for pre-constituted panels can be submitted by any of the presenters or the Chair of the panel and should include:
title of the panel
brief outline (100 words maximum) of the overall topic
abstracts of all the presentations – no more than 3 papers – following abstract guidelines listed above.

Abstracts should follow the guidelines for individual papers as above and include short bios and contact details of both the speakers and the panel Chair. Wherever possible, the Chair should NOT be one of the presenters. If a proposal for a pre-constituted panel does not include a Chair, the Conference Committee will appoint one. All proposals should indicate “Panel Proposal SRN 2022 in the file title and in the subject heading of the submission email.

Website and registration
The Website for the conference will include a wealth of useful information (e.g., registration, travel arrangements, accommodation options), as well as all the updates and the program leading up to the Conference. It will go live in early December.
The conference fee is expected to be in the region of $120 USC /100 Euro.

SRN Conversations #2 is now online!

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In this video, JJ Murphy, Kathryn Millard and Alex Munt talk to Rosanne Welch about the SRN conferences they organized in Sydney (Australia) in 2012 and Madison, Wisconsin (USA) in 2013.

This is the living memory of the Screenwriting Research Network.

 

SRN 2022 Vienna – Conference Call for Papers

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Call for Papers

14th Screenwriting Research Network International Conference:
Globalizing Screenwriting

22nd-24th September 2022

Department of Theatre, Film and Media Studies, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

UZA II-Rotunde, Althanstraße 14, 1090 Wien

Film Academy Vienna,
Anton-von-Webern-Platz 1, 1030 Wien

Essential Information:

Deadline for abstracts: 15th December 2021
Shortlisting/notification of acceptance by: End of January 2022
Early-bird registration: From early March until end of May 2022
Regular registration by: Mid-July 2022
Late registration by: End of August 2022
Submissions via email and contact: stephanie.schwarz@univie.ac.at

Call for Papers:

The SRN is comprised of scholars, writers, and practice-based researchers. Started in 2006, the network has achieved a substantial critical mass over the years – currently counting 700 members from 50+ countries.

The aim of the annual International Conference is to continue, and expand, discussions around the screenplay and to strengthen a rapidly emerging, and global, research network. So far, they have taken place in Leeds (2008), Helsinki (2009), Copenhagen (2010), Brussels (2011), Sydney (2012), Madison-Wisconsin (2013), Potsdam-Babelsberg (2014), London (2015), Leeds (2016), Dunedin (2017), Milan (2018) and Porto (2019) and due to pandemic online, organized by Oxford Brookes in 2021.

Submission of abstracts/proposals

Proposals/Abstracts can be sent as either a Word or PDF document: please indicate “yourname_PROPOSALTYPE” (i.e. paper, panel, or videoessay; see below) clearly in the file title and in the subject heading of your submission.

Format of presentations/abstracts

After the cancelling of the 2020 conference and the online seminar series we are planning a face-to face conference, the first since Porto 2019.

All presentations, regardless of format, must therefore be delivered in person (i.e. no pre-recorded presentations), in English, and be underpinned by original research work being conducted by the presenter (i.e. no recycling/repetitions from previous SRN or other conferences). Multiple presenters (max. 2) for co-written papers are allowed.

We accept proposals for presentations in the following formats:

Individual papers

Proposals for traditional 20-minute papers, followed by Q&A. They should include:

  • Title
  • Author’s name
  • Affiliation (university, independent, practitioner, etc.)
  • Contact details
  • Abstract (max. 300 words)
  • 4-6 keywords
  • short bio (max 150 words), detailing your research activity, publications and/or screenwriting practice.

Pre-constituted panels

individual papers + Q&A (as per guidelines above) on a shared topic. Proposals for pre-constituted panels can be submitted by any of the presenters or the Chair of the
panel and should include:

  • title of the panel
  • brief outline (100 words maximum) of the overall topic
  • abstracts of all the presentations – no more than 3 papers.

Abstracts should follow the guidelines for individual papers as above and include short bios and contact details of both the speakers and the panel Chair. Wherever possible, the Chair should NOT be one of the presenters. If a proposal for a pre-constituted panel does not include a Chair, the Conference Committee will appoint one. All proposals should indicate “Panel Proposal SRN 2022 in the file title and in the subject heading of the submission email.

Audiovisual essays

Proposals are invited to present an audiovisual essay of 15 minutes maximum, in which the presenter(s) express a position on one of the above topics. It should NOT be a recording of a traditional paper presentation nor an experimental film; rather, it is an audiovisual discourse on a theoretical position. Essays can be submitted both individually or in panels of 3 videos grouped thematically (see guidelines above).

Note: the presence of the presenter at the conference is required.

Shortlisting

We warmly recommend that the abstracts be as well-drafted as possible with a well-
defined research question, a clear focus, and a short summary of the intended

content of the presentation at the time of submission.
We aim to notify acceptance/rejection of proposals by the end of January 2022.

Website and registration

The Website for the Vienna conference will include a wealth of useful information (e.g., registration, travel arrangements, accommodation options, Covid rules), as well as all the updates and the program leading up to the Conference.

Registration will have the usual phased deadlines (early-bird, regular, late-premium, student concession); the conference fee is expected to be in the region of 100 Euro.

Contacts

Please address any query regarding abstracts, registration, program, etc. to claus.tieber@univie.ac.at or stephanie.schwarz@univie.ac.at

  • Claus Tieber University of Vienna, FWF-Project (Organizer)
  • Stephanie Schwarz University of Vienna, FWF-Project (Co-Organizer)
  • Claudia Walkensteiner-Preschl, Film Academy Vienna (Co-Organizer)

Department of Theatre, Film and Media Studies, University of Vienna
UZA II-Rotunde, Althanstraße 14, 1090 Wien

Film Academy Vienna
Anton-von-Webern-Platz 1, 1030 Wien