This comes to us from:
Rob LeBlanc, Ph.D. cand.
Organizing Committee
2008 URI Graduate Student Conference
I’m contacting you as part of my work on the organizing committee of an exciting upcoming event: the 2008 URI Graduate Student Conference to be held on March 29, 2008 at the main campus of the University of Rhode Island in Kingston. This will be our second annual conference and it represents an opportunity for graduate students from all disciplines to come together to share their work under the theme of Space, Place, and Imagination.
The reason that I am writing to you at the Rhode Island Film Collaborative is that this event promises to be especially interesting for filmmakers and film scholars in the area. Not only are film scholars presenting their scholarly work at the event, but our keynote speakers for this year’s conference are both important figures in the film industry. Deborah Davis, who will serve as our first speaker, is an author, historian, and veteran film executive who has worked with Warner Bros., Columbia TriStar, Disney, Miramax, and the William Morris Agency. Her husband Mark Urman, who will be our second keynote speaker, is the head of US theatrical distribution for THINKFilm, Inc. He has overseen the acquisition and distribution of such successful films as Spellbound, Gerry, Primer, Half Nelson, Murderball, Down in the Valley, Bright Young Things, and Born Into Brothels. These two keynote addresses promise to offer some fascinating insights into the film and publishing industries. We are currently working on having some portions of the conference filmed by URI film students for possible public television showings at a later date.
Please feel free to publicize this exciting event to anyone in the Rhode Island film community who might be interested. If you should become aware of anyone who might wish to contribute to our ongoing fundraising efforts, please also feel free to contact us about this. Again, the main purpose of this e-mail is simply to make you aware of an exciting film-related event coming to Rhode Island on March 29. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at robleblanc@comcast.net or to visit our website at: http://www.uri.edu/artsci/eng/english_ NEW/Graduate/GradConference2008/conference%20page.pdf.
We hope to have a complete schedule of events and further information about our keynote addresses available soon.
(This is not an RIFC Event!)