Reframing the Monsters Outside: Mavericks, Rebels and Rule Breakers in Cult Film
​18th - 23rd October 2022

Online conference with accompanying physical/virtual guests and screenings ​ - presented by Birmingham City University, MAC Birmingham, The Electric Cinema and Mockingbird Cinema.

Confirmed Guest of Honour

Peter Strickland 
(Flux Gourmet, In Fabric, Berberian Sound Studio)
Recipient of the Cine-Excess 2022 Innovator of Horror Award

Keynote Speaker

Professor Maisha Wester
​University of Sheffield
Further Guests of Honour who will be attending Cine-Excess 16 to discuss the theme of ‘Reframing the Monsters Outside: Mavericks, Rebels and Rule Breakers in Cult Film’ will be announced shortly

​Cine-Excess has been running since 2007 as an annual film festival and conference that combines visiting international filmmakers, a themed academic conference and film premieres and exclusive screenings. Previous Cine-Excess guests have included Pam Grier (Jackie Brown), Jen and Sylvia Soska (American Mary), Norman J. Warren (Prey), Catherine Breillat (Romance), Roger Corman (The Masque of the Red Death) Dario Argento (Deep Red), Joe Dante (The Howling), Franco Nero (Django) and Vanessa Redgrave (Blow Up).
 
For its 16th annual edition, Cine Excess invites a critical rethinking of cinematic rule breaking and those cult film figures, practices and traditions that have been so central to debates in this field. From early cinema to the subversive contemporary screen, rule breaking remains a perennial theme to cult film discourse, and accommodates a diverse range of filmmakers, performers and industrial practices. From classic cult mavericks like Ed Wood and John Waters through to contemporary, cutting-edge auteurs who experiment with the limits of genre and cult film definition itself such as this year’s guest Peter Strickland, this tradition manifests in a range of films and their reception contexts and broader legacies. However, the concept of the cinematic outsider also incorporates important considerations of race, gender, sexuality and disability within cult film representations. Some of these themes will be addressed by Professor Maisha Wester in her keynote address on the topic of Anti-Blackness and Relative Monstrosity.  

​Additionally, the dynamic evolution that marks cult cinema has seen the very notion of rule-breaking itself change, along with the role of what have typically been defined as mavericks and rebels. The spirit of transgression that lies at the heart of rule breaking – be it ideologically, stylistically, industrially or a range of other ways – now sees new manifestations of how this spirit of subversion can be rethought.
 
Accordingly, this year’s theme Reframing the Monsters Outside: Mavericks, Rebels and Rule Breakers in Cult Film invites participants to look back over cinema’s established mavericks as well as considering contemporary outsiders within the terrain of cult film. The topic of the film mavericks and outsiders will also consider broader issues pertaining to subversion and transgression; who historically has been associated with breaking the rules, how that concept has changed and how mavericks and rebels can be most productively reimagined as we move forward in a spirit of inclusive representation.
 
Proposals are invited for individual papers or pre-constituted panels that consider cult film case-studies within a range of differing contexts that relate to this year’s theme. However, we would particularly welcome contributions that focus on the following areas:

  • Challenging the orthodoxy: case-studies of cult mavericks, rebels and rule breakers.
  • Experimental world building and beyond in the films of Peter Strickland.
  • LGBTQIA+ rebels and rule breakers in cult films/cult industries.
  • Mavericks, monsters and rule breakers: horror and monstrous marginality.
  • (Re)gendering the cult film mavericks.
  • Dangerously different: disability and intersectionality in cult film.
  • Rethinking genre through the cult film deviation.
  • Porn rebels, body doubles and sexual mavericks.
  • Indigenous and diasporic renditions of the outsider.
  • Mavericks beyond the West: Asian, African and South American cult film rule breakers
  • Cult film bandits: outlaws, criminals and revolutionaries on screen.  
  • The maverick as maniac: loners, outsiders and the cult thriller.
  • Welcome to the machine: industrial readings of the cult film organisations.  
  • Aural rule breaking and the sonic intersections: The sounds of cult cinema
  • Maverick identities: cult and national cinema contexts.
  • Mainstream Agitators: cinema’s new rule breakers.
  • Cult creatives: zines, magazines and their cultural legacies.
  • Constructed “heroes” and contested “muses”: maverick collaborations.
  • Thrills at the margins: transnational examples of the cult action canon.  
  • Forgotten icons: reconsidering the lost cult film performer.
  • Channels of dissent: new media, innovation and rule breaking.  
 
Over the past 16 years Cine-Excess has developed a reputation as an inclusive and safe space in which to present new work around global cult film cultures. We welcome submissions from emerging and established and scholars, activists, film makers and community groups.
 
Please send a 300-word abstract and a short (one page) C.V. by Monday 22nd August 2022 to:  
 
Dr Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
Co-Director of Cine-Excess
alexandra.heller.nicholas@cine-excess.co.uk

Amy Harris
Co-Director of Cine-Excess
amy.harris@cine-excess.co.uk
 
Professor Xavier Mendik
Director of Cine-Excess
xavier.mendik@cine-excess.co.uk

A final listing of accepted presentations will be released on Monday 29th August 2022
 
Filmmakers wishing to submit short and/or feature-length films for consideration at Cine-Excess 16 should consult our Film Freeway (opens in new window).
 
For press enquires and guest updates about Cine-Excess 16 please contact:
Natasha Marburger
Co-Director of Cine-Excess
natasha.marburger@cine-excess.co.uk
 
Cine-Excess 16 comprises an online conference with accompanying physical/virtual guests and screenings. Delegate fees are: £75/£40 (concessions) for attendance at the virtual conference and related physical and streamed screenings and filmmaker talks. We have adopted this hybrid structure to ensure that the event remains accessible and inclusive to international and low-waged scholars.

For further information and regular updates on the event please check back with us regularly.