International conference
Contemporary mini-series or the powers of the in-between
HEAD - Geneva // Cinema Department // 12-13 May 2023
The production of mini-series continues to grow, initiated by both television channels and streaming platforms, and increasingly supported by actresses and actors from the film industry. Miniseries such as Top of the Lake (2013), P'tit quinquin (2014), Chernobyl (2019), Small Axe (2020) or, even more recently, We Own This City (2022) are drawing a vast aesthetic constellation, induced by very varied production strategies.
The French notion of mini-series is very broad; in the Anglo-Saxon world, it is broken down into sub-categories with porous borders: miniseries, limited series, limited-run series in the strict television field, anthology mini-series. The commonly accepted definition of miniseries is based mainly on the self-contained narrative and reduces both the structure and the modalities of exploitation to a limited number of episodes (generally less than 12), to be broadcast - in the case of limited-run TV series - on consecutive days and over a short period.
The aim of this conference is to question the aesthetic powers of contemporary mini-series, produced since the 2000s, to analyse the singular seriality and the modes of production that are related to them, to question their specific modes of broadcasting.
What principles of seriality are at work in mini-series? Do the limited number of episodes and the strategies of time-limited broadcasting imply different narrative forms from those of long-running series? How are the writing of spaces and the evolutionary dynamics of characters constrained by this "limited seriality"?
Mini-series are often part of smaller economies and circumscribed temporalities. To what extent can they constitute creative spaces conducive to aesthetic inventions, to the deployment of singular filmic forms, sometimes implemented by filmmakers coming from feature films? How do certain mini-series rely on journalistic or sociological observations to create narratives of limited seriality that plunge into the social workings and cultural dynamics of our time?
These questions will be examined in the light of the two other standard genres: series (in the literal sense of the term), of which mini-series are a reduced and limited modality, and feature films, of which they constitute an extension with serialities.
Bertrand Bacqué et Olivier Zuchuat
PROGRAM
Friday the 12th of 2023
09h00 - 09h30 : Introduction
Panel 1 :From cinema to mini-series : interactions, circulations, adaptations.
Moderation: Bertrand Bacqué (HEAD-Genève)
09h30 - 10h15 : Anthony Enns (Associate Professor, Dalhousie University) - From the Big Screen to the Little Screen: Converting Feature Films into Mini-Series
10h15 - 11h00 : Livio Belloï (Associate Professor, Liège University) - Hybridations, in-between Effect-film and effect-mini-series in The Red Riding Trilogy(Channel 4, 2009)
Break
11h30-12h15 : Olivier Zuchuat (Associate Prof. HES, HEAD-Genève, Suisse & EDSTA-ESTCA - Paris 8) - Small Axe (Steve McQueen, 2020): towards minimal seriality?
12h15-13h00 : Frédéric Monvoisin (lecturer, Sciences-Po Saint Germain-en-Laye) - Power of the in-between, a standard of the Japanese series
13h00 - 14h30 : Lunch
Panel 2 : New serial writing ?
Moderation: Olivier Zuchuat (HEAD-Genève)
14h30 - 15h15 : Christophe Gelly (Professor in the Department of English at the University of Clermont Auvergne) & David Roche (Professor of Film Studies, Paul Valéry Montpellier 3 University) - Top of the Lake (Jane Campion, 2013, 2017), an auteurist mini-series?
15h15 - 16h00 : Charlotte Servel (lecturer in film studies at the University of Grenoble Alpes - France) - The writing methods of French mini-series
Pause
16h30 - 17h15 : Alain Hertay (Teacher at the Haute École de la Province de Liège) - The Third Day, renewing the serial space
17h15 - 18h00 : Fabien Boully (Associate Professor, University of Paris Nanterre) - Normal People (Alice Birch and Sally Rooney, 2020): connections and disconnections
Saturday the 13th of 2023
09h00 - 09h30 : Reception anf coffee
Panel 3 :Mini-series on the documentary horizon
Moderation: Mireille Berton (Univ. de Lausanne)
09h30 - 10h15 : Bacqué Bertrand (Associate Prof HES, HEAD-Genève, Suisse) - David Simon: from the long-running series - The Wire - to the mini-series - We Own This City
10h15 - 11h00 : Sarah Hatchuel (Professor of Film and Audiovisual Studies, University Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3) - The mini-series Five Days at Memorial (Apple TV+, 2022) versus long-running medical series: another ethics of catastrophe
Panel 4 :Stars as producers / authors ?
Moderation: Mireille Berton (Univ. de Lausanne)
11h30 - 12h15 : Pierre-Olivier Toulza (Associate Professor HDR, Paris Cité University) - The star as author: Nicole Kidman and the mini-series
12h15 - 13h00 : Sophie Goudjil (ESTCA, Paris 8 University) - From book club to mini-series, Reese Witherspoon's strategy
13h00 - 14h30 : Lunch
Panel 5 : What transmedia does to mini-series ?
Moderation: Ariane Hudelet (Univ. Paris - Cité)
14h30 - 15h15 : Anne Kustritz (Assistant Professor in Media Studies at Utrecht University) - User-Generated Seriality : Transmediating the Boundaries of True Crime Mini-Series
15h15-16h00 : Charles Joseph (Lecturer, Le Mans University) - Watching Watchmen (HBO, 2019), or the transmediadaptation of contemporary North America
16h30 - 18h00 : Conclusion - Bertrand Bacqué & Olivier Zuchuat
Organisation : Bertrand Bacqué (Prof HES associé, HEAD) & Olivier Zuchuat (Prof. HES associé, HEAD. ESTCA - Université de Paris 8)
Language : français ou anglais
Scientifiaue committee : Bertrand Bacqué (Département Cinéma, HEAD-Genève), Mireille Berton (Section d'histoire et esthétique du cinéma, Université de Lausanne), Ariane Hudelet (UFR Études anglophones, Université Paris Cité), Anne Kustritz (Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht University), Stacy Takacs (Department of English, Oklahoma State University), Olivier Zuchuat (Département Cinéma, HEAD-Genève)
Partners : ·GIFF (Geneva International Film Festival). Fonction Cinéma. Avec le soutien de EDESTA- ECTA (Paris 8)
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