I suppose that, after three times attending the same event, one can be considered a ‘regular’, if not a ‘veteran’. Then this is the case for me at Cine-Excess, the conference and festival on global cult film traditions: I attended and presented a talk last year, and in 2011 this was my very first truly international conference as a PhD candidate and delegate outside my department and home country.
Cult cinema is quite an established field of research nowadays, and a major achievement of Cine-Excess is that it opened the doors to young researchers who can present papers and projects in development in a very welcoming and supporting atmosphere. And, most importantly, receive feedback from established names in the field.
The 9th edition was hosted from 12th to 14th November at the University of Brighton. This year’s theme sounded particularly intriguing to me: ‘Historical Trauma, Hysterical Texts: Cult Film in Time of Crisis’. As usual, the plus of the event was that attendants could get a wide range of theoretical frameworks to approach cult cinema, as contamination across theories and fields of research is in the DNA of Cine-Excess. But a major merit was also the combination of academia and industry: industrial panels this time were focused in particular on co-production opportunities and transnational funds for cult films.
As far as I am concerned, I could only attend the opening day. I was part of the very funny panel ‘The Contaminated Screen: Zombie and Cannibals in Social Context’, where I presented a paper titled ‘Fear Will Eat You Alive: Exploring The Green Inferno in the Age of Social Media’. This was the second take of a research on the audience engagement around Eli Roth’s film that I am currently developing.
I’m now looking forward to knowing what the conference theme for next year will be: the title will be announced in the next few days and maybe there will be a fourth Cine-Excess for me in 2016.