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Bringing African Film to International Audiences (Lindiwe Dovey)

Summary of the impact

African filmmakers have long experienced difficulties in funding, exhibiting and distributing their work, reflecting the dominance of Hollywood and `mainstream' cinema. Dr Lindiwe Dovey's research into African film and international film distribution investigates how such difficulties might be overcome, while drawing attention to the diversity and originality of African filmmaking practices. This research inspired and enabled the creation of the UK's largest film festival, Film Africa, showcasing African-made culture to a wider audience, and providing a space where African filmmakers can meet with distributors and funders, enhancing their potential to further their careers internationally.

Submitting Institution

School of Oriental & African Studies

Unit of Assessment

Area Studies

Summary Impact Type

Cultural

Research Subject Area(s)

Studies In Creative Arts and Writing: Film, Television and Digital Media
Language, Communication and Culture: Cultural Studies, Literary Studies

African Caribbean Cinema: Culture and the Creative Industries

Summary of the impact

Imruh Bakari's film projects such as African Tales (2005/2008) and Big City Stories (2011) have had impact in the areas of civil society and cultural life, specifically in illuminating social and cultural assumptions (of audiences of audio-visual culture in Africa and the UK) about contemporary Tanzania and Black London.

The impact of Bakari's research focusing on African and Caribbean cinemas, and related subjects in cultural studies, also extends into areas of policy making, education, and training surrounding film production and distribution in Africa and Europe. This is evident through public engagement (with film industry professionals, younger audiences, and the wider public) and archiving, and through engagement with policy initiatives for the creative industries sector in Tanzania.

Submitting Institution

University of Winchester

Unit of Assessment

Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management 

Summary Impact Type

Cultural

Research Subject Area(s)

Studies In Creative Arts and Writing: Film, Television and Digital Media
Language, Communication and Culture: Cultural Studies
History and Archaeology: Historical Studies

Sickle Cell Awareness

Summary of the impact

Jane Thorburn's research into Nigerian cinema and storytelling forms, together with her long-running practice-based research within documentary and experimental arts filmmaking, led to a NHS commission to produce a film on sickle cell disease (SCD). The Family Legacy project has had an impact on cultural values and health and wellbeing in civil society, and on public services and education in the UK and Nigeria. Making innovative use of the story-telling conventions of Nollywood home videos in order to engage its audience, the film successfully led an NHS campaign to educate — and enhance the public service offered to — people at risk of producing children with debilitating sickle cell disease, enabling them to make informed health choices before conception and during pregnancy. It also challenged taboos and myths that previously surrounded the disease. The Family Legacy has been widely disseminated, not only on television channels in UK, USA and West Africa, but also on genealogical websites and in ground-breaking outreach campaigns in barbers' shops, mosques, churches and doctors' surgeries in the UK. An estimated 12 million people have been reached by this campaign, with positive feedback of attitude change from the 3500+ people attending NHS awareness-raising sessions.

Submitting Institution

University of Westminster

Unit of Assessment

Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory

Summary Impact Type

Societal

Research Subject Area(s)

Studies In Creative Arts and Writing: Film, Television and Digital Media
Language, Communication and Culture: Cultural Studies

Film festivals: creating, events, programmes and audiences

Summary of the impact

Film Festivals constitute the main institutional alternative to commercially-driven cinema and as such occupy a vitally important part of our cultural heritage. The BFI estimates that `only 7% of all cinema screens are regularly devoted to non-mainstream film', and cites the film festival as an exemplary model for broadening cinema knowledge and education (`New Horizons for UK Film 2012-17'). Film Studies Queen Mary is committed to enhancing a public understanding of obscure and complex film through film festivals, bringing to bear insights born of research including production histories and analytical interpretations of film texts and performances. Collaborating with programmers, curators, local authorities, and diasporic communities, researchers have made significant contributions to festivals including to the founding of two new film festivals (the London Spanish Film Festival 2005 and Cutting East Youth Film Festival 2013), engaging with constituent groups and cultures that are not strongly represented in the UK's commercial film culture.

Submitting Institution

Queen Mary, University of London

Unit of Assessment

Modern Languages and Linguistics

Summary Impact Type

Cultural

Research Subject Area(s)

Studies In Creative Arts and Writing: Film, Television and Digital Media
Language, Communication and Culture: Cultural Studies, Literary Studies

Death in Africa: A History c.1800 to Present Day

Summary of the impact

This project has had significant reach beyond the academy, through two main avenues. Through sustained relationships with NGOs, faith-based organisations and other members of civil society involved in the management of death in South Africa, the project has aided in the professional development of African staff, and shaped training and facilitation on responses to death, grief and loss. And, through public engagement with its research on the funeral industry — including very broad dissemination of the documentary film `The Price of Death'— the project has engaged local South African audiences in debates around the cost of death and the commodification of funerals.

Submitting Institution

Goldsmiths' College

Unit of Assessment

History

Summary Impact Type

Societal

Research Subject Area(s)

Medical and Health Sciences: Public Health and Health Services
History and Archaeology: Historical Studies

Supporting multiculturalism through children’s book illustration

Summary of the impact

This case study describes the impact of Grobler's practice-as-research conducted through development of illustrations for a book targeted at an international children's readership of 5 to 11 year olds. Providing `an African retelling' of Aesop's fables and intended to stimulate children's playful engagement with African cultures, the book's and Grobler's illustrations' overt agenda was to promote and promulgate intercultural understanding and multiculturalism. Impact has been achieved through initial publication and international distribution of Aesop's Fables in English and subsequent republication in a further nine editions and six languages in the period. Additional impact was derived from Grobler's invited presentation and discussion of his approach to developing his illustrations in the context of international exhibitions and professional fora in Europe.

Submitting Institution

University of Worcester

Unit of Assessment

Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory

Summary Impact Type

Cultural

Research Subject Area(s)

Language, Communication and Culture: Cultural Studies, Literary Studies
History and Archaeology: Historical Studies

‘Participation’: Rediscovering and repurposing the creative productions of the Birmingham Film and Video Workshop (BFVW) for new audiences and practitioners

Summary of the impact

Roger Shannon's research on the legacy of the Birmingham Film and Video Workshop (BFVW) has fed directly into the curation and digitisation of previously neglected productions from this pioneering collective, which are now available for public exhibition at arts centres, cinemas, galleries and festivals. The specific examples of the public articulation of the impact include the Participation exhibition at the Vivid Gallery in Birmingham (2009), the digitisation of the original BFVW material, and the Hell Unltd/Traces Left event at the Glasgow Film Theatre (2013) which Shannon co-ordinated. He also worked closely with musician Kim Moore in her composition and performance to accompany the Hell Unltd event.

Three claims to impact stemming from Shannon's research are made here:

  1. Engaged new audiences with a previously lost aspect of Birmingham's cultural history — the important legacy of the Film and Video Workshop from the 1970s and 1980s and their influence on independent film and television production
  2. Curation and digitisation of BFVW film and video material, now archived at Vivid Gallery in Birmingham, for new audiences, curators and artists
  3. Rediscovery of the life and work of Helen Biggar, neglected collaborator of Norman McLaren and pioneer of the women's protest movement.

Submitting Institution

Edge Hill University

Unit of Assessment

Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management 

Summary Impact Type

Cultural

Research Subject Area(s)

Studies In Creative Arts and Writing: Film, Television and Digital Media
Language, Communication and Culture: Cultural Studies

Spectatorship, Audiences and Film Criticism

Summary of the impact

This case study examines the impact of Catherine Wheatley's research into spectatorship, audiences, and critical contexts through engagement with the popular press and public-facing media institutions. It focuses on Wheatley's work with Sight & Sound, the monthly consumer magazine published by the British Film Institute, which reaches beyond academia to a cine-literate but non-specialist audience. Her research has influenced discussion and criticism of cinema for a large, interested cine-enthusiastic audience as well as contributing to broader public debate and cultural discussion of cinema through mass-media appearances. She has also judged a competition for budding female critics, encouraging more women to write thoughtfully on film, and nurturing a new generation of women critics through which her research has been able to influence the practice of film criticism more widely.

Submitting Institution

King's College London

Unit of Assessment

Music, Drama, Dance and Performing Arts

Summary Impact Type

Cultural

Research Subject Area(s)

Studies In Creative Arts and Writing: Film, Television and Digital Media
Language, Communication and Culture: Cultural Studies, Literary Studies

The impact on awareness, understanding and public engagement with the possibilities of audio-visual exploration and expression of collective cultural and political memory, genres and narratives

Summary of the impact

This case study refers to the impact of the work of one member of the submitting unit. The assertion is that the work of Zubillaga has had impact on civil society, cultural life and public discourse. It has: illuminated a repository of cultural capital (through archival research) and interrogated cultural values (specific to a Latin American context) enriched the imaginations of those who have viewed his films; enhanced sensibilities with regard to the cultural themes they explore; and extended the range and improved the quality of evidence, argument and expression to enhance public understanding of Venezuelan and more broadly Latin American cultural and political memory.

Submitting Institution

University of West London

Unit of Assessment

Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management 

Summary Impact Type

Cultural

Research Subject Area(s)

Studies In Creative Arts and Writing: Film, Television and Digital Media
Language, Communication and Culture: Cultural Studies, Literary Studies

ENG06 - Literary history promoting national reconciliation and cross-cultural awareness in South Africa

Summary of the impact

Attwell and Attridge's paradigm-shifting research on the culturally and linguistically diverse literary history of South Africa has had a significant influence on the country's reassessment of its cultural past, present and future. In a national situation in which literature has always been embedded in political life, apartheid divisions left different racial and linguistic groups out of touch with each other's literary heritage. Attridge and Attwell undertook to bridge these differences by producing the first comprehensive history of literature across all languages and in all periods, widely seen as a major step forward in national cross-cultural awareness. The key beneficiaries are a range of political, cultural, media and educational institutions, and the people served by them, in South Africa and across the world.

Submitting Institution

University of York

Unit of Assessment

English Language and Literature

Summary Impact Type

Cultural

Research Subject Area(s)

Language, Communication and Culture: Cultural Studies, Literary Studies
History and Archaeology: Historical Studies

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