Prof HJORT, Anne Mette

Since the mid-90s my research has focused on themes and issues in Film Studies. 
My contributions in this regard were recognized by The Society for Cinema and Media Studies in 2019 when I was invited to participate in this organization’s Fieldnotes project. This project is described as follows: ‘Through interviews with foundational scholars, we believe that Fieldnotes will help to foster knowledge of and interest in the diverse and dynamic series of developments that have shaped the fields of film and media studies through the years, inspiring thought about the relationship of the past to the present and future of the discipline and the Society. Hundreds and hundreds of people have listened to the interviews that have been collected to date.’ Participation in the Fieldnotes project involved the production of a video focusing on my responses to a number of questions, primarily about my research. Video shot in the Fall of 2019, in Hong Kong. Interviewer, Dr. Missy Molloy, University of Victoria, New Zealand.

https://vimeo.com/416582967

I am associated with the field of small nations and film, a field that I am widely seen as having pioneered. Film in the context of talent development, creativity under constraint, risk, public value, transnational cinema, and human flourishing are other areas to which I have made substantial contributions. I was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Aalborg University, Denmark, for my contributions to transnational cinema.

A Statement of Research - ongoing

My ongoing research projects focus on (i) valuing arts education in Hong Kong; (ii) sustainable filmmaking; (iii) cultures of care; (iv) film and public value, and (v) film in the context of health humanities.

Valuing the Arts in Hong Kong
Based on my roles as Head of Department at HKU, Associate VP of Internationalisation and Quality Assurance at Lingnan, and Dean of Arts at HKBU, and on my three-year membership of the UGC, I have recently contributed an article on the captioned topic to a special issue of Daedalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The issue is edited by Howard Gardner, Wendy Fischman, and Bill Kirby, all at Harvard University. The title of the special issue is: “Advances and Challenges in International Higher Education” and the aim is to “learn about new and promising ideas in many sites, as well as challenges that may well be encountered widely, and how they might be dealt with effectively.” My current experiences in the UK and earlier experiences in Denmark provide a comparative perspective that enable me to tease out the many strengths of the Hong Kong context which continues, in my view, to be a place of great possibility for arts-based education. An example of relevant possibilities is the “Future Cinema Systems: Next-Generation Art Technologies” project, for which I served as project coordinator until recently. The project centres on the work of Jeffrey Shaw and Sara Kenderdine and involves three universities (Hong Kong Baptist University as the lead institution, City University Hong Kong, and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)). With a budget of HK$ 35,424,462, this recently awarded ITF project is a response to then-Chief Executive of Hong Kong Carrie Lam’s call for innovative (applied) research in the area of Art & Technology, an area that I had the opportunity to support in my role as Dean of Arts at HKBU. 

Sustainable Filmmaking
In 2016 I published the article “What Does It Mean to be an Ecological Filmmaker? Knut Erik Jensen’s Work as Eco-Auteur” (Projections: The Journal for Movies and Mind 10.2: 104-124. doi: 10:3167/proj.2016.100206). My commitment to this and related areas of investigation remains strong, and thus I participated, from 2020-2022, in the University of Warwick-based international AHRC-funded network devoted to sustainability in filmmaking. I was to have hosted the network in Hong Kong in the Spring of 2020, but this undertaking was deferred to the Spring of 2022, due, first, to the occupation of our campus by protesters during a prolonged period of social unrest, and, second, to the travel complications caused by COVID-19. Eventually, the event took place virtually in 2022. We designed the event in such a way as to foster a robust exchange between sustainability coordinators and other relevant practitioners and scholars in North America, the UK, and Europe, and film practitioners in Hong Kong and Mainland China. The exchanges were very fruitful indeed and it became clear that there is a great appetite to pursue the issues in a systematic and deliberate manner. I am also keen to undertake research on sustainable filmmaking on an individual basis. An example is my recent contribution to Hunter Vaughan and Pietari Kaapa’s Film and TV Production in an Era of Climate Change (2022). Entitled ‘The Necessity of Sustainable Filmmaking: Production Notes from Palestine, Burkina Faso, and Zanzibar,’ my chapter draws on my field work in the relevant geographical sites, sites where I continue to have vital research interests.

Cultures of Care
I am a Co-I on John Erni’s Education University of Hong Kong-funded “Comparative Cultures of Care” (HK$ 5,390,000) project and will be contributing to two of the work packages, the one focused on developing a theoretical framework for care work, the other on forging student projects on a transnational basis. My participation in this project reflects my strong interest in concepts of care as they relate to the creative and cultural industries. Thus I recently participated in a round table discussion convened by Leshu Torchin of the University of St Andrews at the BAFTSS conference at the University of Lincoln in April 2023. This round table discussion focused on new roles such as Intimacy Coordinators, Sustainability Coordinators, Covid Compliance Officers, Accessibility Coordinators and Diversity Readers, the aim being to understand how these new roles reflect major shifts of culture, policy, and understanding.  

Film and Public Value
The sorts of films that get made and viewed have a direct bearing on the quality of our societies, a truth that has long been recognised by filmmakers on the African continent, where filmmaking is often regarded as a matter of public value (a significant strand of my research is based on my engagement with practitioners in Burkina Faso, Kenya, and Zanzibar). I am keen to make the case for film as a vehicle for public values of diverse kinds. Thus, I have recently published the Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Motion Pictures and Public Value (2022, co-edited with Ted Nannicelli of the University of Queensland). My research in this area is ongoing and connects with another broad area of concern: health humanities.

Film in the Context of Health Humanities
My own contribution to the above-mentioned Companion focuses on moving images, health, and well-being. In 2019, I guest-edited a special issue on this topic for the Journal of Scandinavian Cinema. Entitled “The Public Value of Film: Moving Images, Health, and Well-being,” my article in the special issue is an attempt to map the instrumental uses of moving images in connection with health outcomes (please see Journal of Scandinavian Cinema 9.1: 7-23). My next project in the area involves an in-depth study of the UK-based MediCinema initiative. The intention is to (a) assess the non-profit’s curatorial principles in light of the findings of neuro-scientists, positive psychologists, and cognitive film scholars, (b) explore the relative merits of screening different genres of filmmaking in hospital settings, and (c) identify the conditions that enable the implementation of MediCinema’s vision for hospital screenings, so as to facilitate knowledge transfer to, and localisation in, other jurisdictions. In light of the challenges faced by the health sector as a result of COVID-19, it is also important (d) to investigate the extent to which film screenings or viewings can be sustained in hospital settings in times of significant health crises, or in their wake. 

With public health services in many jurisdictions increasingly advocating social prescribing (the prescribing of culture rather than medicine for certain ailments) I see great research potential in the broad area of health humanities. It is fair to say that film’s potential contributions to health, well-being, and human flourishing have been largely neglected and are thus generally poorly understood. I am keen to change this.