The University of Udine held the “Work and Play” conference (Gorizia, 10-11 July 2024) to explore issues of labour of and around acting in European cinema

On July 10 and 11, 2024, the University of Udine hosted the conference “Work and Play: Studying the Labour of and around Acting in Contemporary European Cinema” at its Gorizia campus. The event was organized by the Italian unit of the AGE-C project, composed of Prof. Francesco Pitassio and Dr. Gloria Dagnino. The Work and Play conference was organized with the intention of providing a platform for exchange and discussion around a series of questions, methods, and findings that emerged from two distinct – yet adjacent – research projects, both conducted by the University of Udine in collaboration with national and international partners: on the one hand, the project “AGE-C. Ageing and Gender in European Cinema” initiated at the end of 2022 and running until January 2027, and, on the other hand, the project “F-ACTOR. Forms of Contemporary Media Professional Acting. Training, Recruitment, and Management, Social Discourses in Italy (2000-2020)”, funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research, and ending this year.

Opened to the institutional greetings of Prof. Linda Borean, Head of the Department of Humanities and Cultural Heritage, the conference featured 27 attendees coming from Italy, France, the UK, the Czech Republic and the USA. Two keynote speakers were invited: Prof. Catherine O’Rawe from the University of Bristol and Dr Christopher Holliday from King’s College London. Prof. O’Rawe’s shed light onto an oft neglected, yet culturally very significant figure, that of the “extra”, with her speech titled “Extra Time: The Performance and Labour of the Background Actor”. Dr Holliday’s keynote, titled “The Asset Effect: New Digital Technologies in Contemporary European Screen Acting” addressed some of ways in which digital technologies are affecting the work of actors. Dr Holliday’s keynote was particularly in synch with the aims and questions of the AGE-C project, as he explored, among other things, synthetic media production practices such as digitally-enabled posthumous acting performance and digital de-aging.

The conference featured 17 paper presentations, divided among five panels, which explored a number of socio-cultural, aesthetic, educational, economic, and policy related topics from national specific, as well as transnational perspectives. Some of the recurring themes across the featured presentations included analyses of the actor’s performance; the acting training and labour market; and the role of professional intermediaries (namely talent agents and casting directors). Dr Alexandre Moussa (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle), member of the AGE-C project’s French Unit, presented a paper titled “Professional Grandmother: Édith Scob, and the Labour of Embodying Old Age as a Character Actress”. In it, Dr Moussa argued that, despite being less studied than the work of their most famous counterparts, the labour of character actors is more relevant in order to understand dominant representations of old age onscreen. Moussa demonstrates this through the case of French characters actress Édith Scob (1937-2019) who had an unexpected, fruitful late career as a “professional grandmother” in both auteur cinema and big-budget productions.

The conference also featured an industry roundtable, moderated by AGE-C member Dr Gloria Dagnino and Prof. Mariapaola Pierini (University of Turin) titled “Labour and Gender Equity: Practices, Policies, Prospects”. Participants to the roundtable were representatives from some of Italy’s leading associations pushing for gender parity within the film, performing arts and television industries: Domizia De Rosa (President of Women in Film Television & Media Italia); Eleonora Giovanardi and Valeria Perdonò (Actresses and founding members of Amleta); and Mia Benedetta and Francesca Romana De Martini (Actresses and founding members of U.N.I.T.A.). The roundtable discussed, among other things, the need to develop dedicated financial incentives for supporting female-driven productions; the cultural work that is still needed to empower young actresses against any forms of discrimination and abuse; and the necessity for screenwriters to overcome stereotypical roles to ensure longer careers to actresses once they approach middle age.

Written by: Dr. Gloria Dagnino

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