Feminism has played a pivotal role in film studies and concepts such as auteur or genre theory are now so widespread we rarely notice them, yet they each entered the critical vocabulary over time by writers intent on securing (and contesting) their meaning. How do radical ideas find a place today? What are the prevailing notions that need shaking up? How does a lively exchange of ideas stack up against the industrial constraints of contemporary film criticism?
Speaker biographies
Catherine Bray has been working as a journalist since getting her first job aged 21 as staff writer on cult film magazine Hotdog. She has since worked for Channel 4 and Channel 5, written for The Telegraph and Heat magazine, and published a paper on the early work of John Milton, in the Milton Quarterly last year. Catherine is a huge fan of the work of Davids Cronenberg, Lynch and Fincher, and some other directors who aren’t called David as well, like John Carpenter. She will watch any movie where a 50 foot whatever attacks something. @catherinebray
Guy Lodge is a South African-born writer and critic based in London. After graduating with an MA in screenwriting from the London Film School, he worked on a number of short and feature film projects before moving into film journalism. He is currently a freelance critic for Variety, and contributes daily to the US site InContention, while his writing has also appeared in The Guardian, Heat and Film4 online. @GuyLodge
Frances Morgan is a writer and musician based in London. The former editor and publisher of Plan B magazine, she has written about music, sonic art, books and film for Electric Sheep, Sight & Sound, Frieze, The Quietus and New Statesman. http://www.francesmorgan.net @frances_morgan
Hannah Patterson has written on film for publications such as The Guardian, Time Out Guides, Sight & Sound, The International Film Guide, Vertigo Magazine and Curzon Magazine, and appeared on Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland. She has edited and contributed to several books on cinema, including The Cinema of Terrence Malick and Contemporary North American Directors, and is currently Commissioning Editor of Kamera Books and Creative Essentials, a series of books about film and filmmaking. She also writes for theatre and film. @h_patterson
Virginie Sélavy is the founder and editor of Electric Sheep, an online magazine that focuses on offbeat, left-field and transgressive cinema. She is the editor of The End: An Electric Sheep Anthology and has contributed to World Directory Cinema: Eastern Europe and the London volume of Film Locations: Cities of the Imagination. She has written on film for The Guardian, Sight and Sound, Cineaste and Frieze. @ESheepMagazine
Kate Taylor is exhibition and distribution officer for the Independent Cinema Office, where she programmes for several arthouse cinemas. Formerly festival director of London Short Film Festival and Abandon Normal Devices, her freelance activities have included conducting filmmaker Q&A sessions and curating the international art programme at FutureEverything. Kate is a board member of Birmingham’s Flatpack Festival and contributes to Electric Sheep magazine. @sheshark