Cover art for London Film and Media Conference brochure, 2012.

London Film and Media Conference 2012. Institute of Education, University of London, London, UK, June 22–24, 2012.

This was the second annual London Film and Media Symposium held at the Institute of Education, University of London. “The End of Representation” served as the central theme of the conference, which celebrated, analyzed, and critiqued the screen-based traditions of film, television, and digital media.

I co-organized a panel session that focused on animated film and storytelling. Included here is the abstract for the paper I presented at the conference, "Moving Memories: Animated Testimonials and the National Film Board of Canada."

ABSTRACT

Moving Memories: Animated Testimonials and the National Film Board of Canada

This paper examines the contemporary cinematic trend to rethink the past through animated film. It specifically considers the National Film Board of Canada’s expanding development of animated nonfiction films that employ personal testimony to confront and deconstruct the fabrication of history. Two NFB shorts are of particular interest: Michael Fukushima’s Minoru: Memory of Exile (1992), which recounts the impact of the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Fukushima’s Japanese-Canadian father, and Ann Marie Fleming’s I Was A Child of Holocaust Survivors (2010), which explores the intergenerational impact of traumatic experience. This paper assesses how both films – and their respective modes of production – become emblematic of the continuous struggle to make sense of history, not only in the interest of personal reconciliations but also for the sake of national and communal catharsis.