Digital Culture & AudioVisual Challenges

Acknowledgment:
The research project was supported by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (H.F.R.I.) under the “1st Call for H.F.R.I. Research Projects to support Faculty Members & Researchers and the Procurement of High-and the procurement of high-cost research equipment grant” (Project Number: 1320).
Extended abstract

This paper focuses on the ways that film practice research can communicate and work in a multidisciplinary approach with different scientific fields. At first the presentation will focus on the establishment of film practice research and the so-called “Third Path in Cinema” in Greece. Since film practice research is a field that is still quite new, in the Greek academic environment, it is important to understand its core ideas, perspectives, issues and solutions that might be able to offer in the Greek academic and independent cinema reality. It will underline the “official path” that a new director has to cross in order to start making their first films in mainstream and independent cinema and the issues that this root has. Then it will describe the so-called “Third Path in Cinema” and it will articulate all the elements that combine the model of the “Academic Filmmaker”. It will discuss issues like impact measuring in case studies and alternative pathways of film distribution in academia and independent cinema.

After the establishment of film practice research in the Greek academic and independent cinema environment the paper will focus on the ways that this “Third Path” can co-operate and create links with different scientific fields of research. It will explore the possibilities of this connection in Greek academia and the solutions that this connection can provide especially in the humanitarian sciences. It will explore the possibilities of this multidisciplinary approach in the stages of data collection, final outputs and impact in case studies research projects and how these final deliverables can work both in research but also as independent cinema films. Also, it will discuss the possibilities of distributing these final products both in academia and independent cinema.

Finally, the paper will address this combination of methodological tools through the case study of EPOCA proposal: "Democratic Shrinkage, Party Politics and Social Protest in the Years of the 'Great Depression'. The case of Greece, 2008-2018" in Panteion University at the Department of Political Science and History. The paper will focus in all the stages of this research project from the writing of the application and the production of the final audio-visual products and the ways that this multidisciplinary approach worked. It will focus on all the solutions that this approach provides to both fields as well as elements that we need to think about for future collaborations. It will explore impact in both of the fields and also the possibilities for future collaborations.