Europa Nostra partners with ACE to call for support to safeguard European film heritage

For the European Heritage Awards Ceremony 2023, Europa Nostra, the European Voice of Civil Society committed to Cultural Heritage, partnered with ACE – Association des Cinémathèques Européennes to highlight heritage excellence and best practices in Europe in the domain of cinema culture.

European film heritage has been too often overlooked when talking about European heritage and European values. This lack  of a reflection on the history of the European filmic language represents an omission which needs to be redressed. European films and audiovisual works have forged European culture over the last 135 years, since the Lumière brothers invented the big screen thanks to their revolutionary camera and projector, the Cinématographe. In our societies where in particular new generations talk through images and share audiovisual stories, a great opportunity exists for film heritage institutions to help to bridge the past, present and future.

In this last century, cinema-going has become part of our cultural habits in Europe, a source of entertainment, firstly, but also a social experience to share common stories, to imagine and dream of a faraway world, to reflect on contemporary events and politics, to engage with our past, to dig into our consciousness and intimacy. Cinema production has dealt with history, colonialism, women’s rights, sexual identity, social inequality, labour relations, scientific revolutions and many other themes that constitute  the human condition and our common history. And cinema still formulates  questions, like any other art form, and triggers collective – critical and creative – thinking.

Through the Association des Cinémathèques Européennes, the European Commission has embarked on a European policy towards cinema heritage. Established in 1991, ACE is a network of 49 European national and regional film archives that aims to safeguard the film heritage and make it accessible to the public. Europa Nostra applauds the collaboration between the European Commission and ACE and expresses its support to further developing an ambitious EU policy towards cinema heritage, as part of a holistic EU strategy towards the safeguard and enhancement of cultural heritage. This was made visible during this year’s European Cultural Heritage Summit held on 27-30 September in Venice, more specifically during the European Heritage Awards Ceremony which took place on 28 September at the Palazzo del Cinema. 

The safeguard of Europe’s film heritage, an integral part of Europe’s shared cultural heritage, presents two main challenges. With regard to the digitisation of film heritage for dissemination purposes, significant work has been done but it needs to be further  enhanced and constantly renewed. Yet digitisation is by no means a comprehensive way to preserve film heritage. While the state of digital preservation on European level can further develop, the majority of film heritage institutions also hold analogue film materials in their collections. Therefore, film preservation and restoration is the only possible way to ensure that this pillar of European culture is duly transmitted to the future generations. In this context, we wish to stress that preserving and restoring films is a costly endeavour and that many film heritage institutions in Europe are struggling to find necessary resources to restore the films, to find space for the conservation of the film materials as well as to invest in the renewal and training of professionals to secure the same level of competences also in the future. In the light of the above, while expressing our strong support for investments which provide support for digital dissemination of film heritage at all levels, we call for adequate funding at European and national level in support of the restoration and conservation of film archives, for the benefit of present and future generations.

 

Sneška Quaedvlieg-Mihailović, Secretary-General of Europa Nostra

Michal Bregant, ACE President

27 October 2023

 


Read more: European Heritage Awards focus on Film Heritage

Watch the European Heritage Awards Ceremony 2023 on Vimeo.

 

European Heritage Awards focus on Film Heritage

The prestigious European Heritage Awards 2023 Ceremony will take place on 28 September in the Palazzo del Cinema in Venice. The Grand Prix laureates and Public Choice winners, selected from among this year’s outstanding heritage achievements, will be announced in the presence of Europa Nostra President Cecilia Bartoli.

For this year’s ceremony, Europa Nostra partnered with ACE – Association des Cinémathèques Européennes and the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG Connect) to highlight heritage excellence and best practices in Europe in the domain of cinema culture.

The ceremony will feature extracts from significant film restoration projects. They will be projected during the intermezzos and as a celebratory conclusion to the event. The films include The Clowns (1970) by Federico Fellini restored by Cineteca di Bologna, the silent Swedish film With Reindeer and Sled in Inka Länta’s Winterland (1926, Erik Bergström) restored by the Swedish Film Institute, the film Life of a Shock Force Worker (1972, Bahrudin ‘Bato’ Čengić) that was jointly restored by Slovenska kinoteka, Hrvatski državni arhiv – Hrvatska kinoteka, Filmski centar Sarajevo and Ōsterreichisches Filmmuseum, and a compilation of Georges Méliès’ short films (1904-1906) restored by La Cinémathèque française. Two of the film excerpts will be accompanied by live music, performed by a violin quartet of the European Union Youth Orchestra. The restored films were presented in the framework of the EU-funded A Season of Classic Films programme.

The event will also be live-streamed via europanostra.org (28 September, 20:00 – 22:00 CET).

 2023 Ceremony Programme Booklet (PDF)
 2023 Summit Programme Booklet (PDF)

The European Heritage Awards Ceremony is the highlight event of the European Cultural Heritage Summit 2023. The Summit is organised by Europa Nostra and co-funded by the European Commission on 27-30 September in Venice, coinciding with the 60th anniversary of Europa Nostra. Europa Nostra is the largest European network of cultural heritage NGOs, supported by a wide network of public bodies, private companies and individuals, covering over 40 countries. It maintains close relations with the European Union, the Council of Europe, UNESCO and other international bodies. The federation campaigns to save Europe’s endangered monuments, sites, and landscapes, in particular through the 7 Most Endangered Programme. Europa Nostra celebrates and disseminates preservation excellence through the European Heritage Awards.

A Season of Classic Films: Celebrating Film Heritage across Europe

Currently in its 4th edition, A Season of Classic Films features free screenings of restored films alongside parallel activities across Europe with the aim of developing new audiences for European film heritage. Through a series of live and online events, the programme raises awareness of the work of European film archives, advocating the significance of film preservation and cinema culture, especially to younger generations. In addition to reaching new audiences, the programme is also an expression of connection and solidarity between the European film archives, something which is key to the preservation of our common film heritage.

A Season of Classic Films is an initiative of the Association des Cinémathèques Européennes (ACE) with the support of the MEDIA strand of the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.

For dates and access links of the upcoming free screenings of A Season of Classic Films in cinemas across Europe and online, please follow ACE’s website and social media pages on Instagram | Facebook | X-Twitter.

 

2nd Global Audiovisual Archiving Conference

The 2nd Global Audiovisual Archiving Conference, presented by Archive/Counter-Archive, Eye Filmmuseum, and the Toronto International Film Festival® (TIFF), will take place between 12th – 14th July 2024 in Toronto, Canada.

CONFERENCE THEME: BUILDING ALLIANCES

The biennial Global Audiovisual Archiving Conference is an opportunity for scholars, archivists, artists, curators, filmmakers, students, and film enthusiasts from across the world to gather and explore contemporary professional, artistic, and socio-political issues affecting audiovisual heritage today. The aim of the conference is to broaden the knowledge and connections within the global archival community, leading to new insights into the material and cultural resonances of archival approaches to sound and moving image in different parts of the world.

Learn more >

The call for proposals will close on 1 October 2023.

The conference invites papers and presentations in a variety of formats that address the challenges and generative opportunities afforded by diverse media archives, from those that are publicly/privately funded to those surviving on very little support. We are especially interested in marginalised audiovisual archives, whether collections are vulnerable to disappearance and inaccessibility or archives that are invisible and need to come into being. Central to our conference is the importance of identifying gaps in the field, building bridges, creating archival networks, fostering collaborations (Pretlove, 2021), and uncovering or deepening alliances (Heidiger et al., 2021). Such approaches may be tied to designing practices of care (Campanini, 2023) and pedagogical approaches for the next generation of archivists, artists, activists, humanists, and historians in ways that are inclusive, expansive, liberatory, and that might reinvent and redefine archival language and protocols. The conference also explores the emergence of theoretical questions, and novel ways of understanding history through notions of entanglement (Namhila and Hillebrecht, 2022) and redefinitions of allyship and stewardship that mark a critical paradigm shift in the field of archival studies.

We encourage proposals from participants located in parts of the world and on topics that are underrepresented in conferences related to audiovisual heritage.

The CfP can be accessed here: https://counterarchive.ca/gava-2024

Budapest Classics Film Marathon 2023

Dear Colleagues,

We invite you to attend the National Film Institute Hungary – Film Archive’s next edition of the Budapest Classics Film Marathon. The festival takes place between 12-17 September 2023, and it is open to visitors at all its favorite venues, Uránia National Film Theatre, Toldi Cinema, the French Institute, Budapest Music Center and the hugely popular and spectacular open-air screenings on Szent István Square in front of the Basilica.

This year, the Marathon’s focuses are Alexander Korda and his Universe, Emeric Pressburger,  Michael Powell, André de Toth, Adolph Zukor, Karel Zeman, female creators in Cinema, sport in film and we offer a yearly overview of recent restorations and rare pearls in the Open Archives section.

Our special guests this year among others: Andrew and Kevin Macdonald, Pierre Földes, Lajos Koltai…

The festival’s popular educational program continues: screenings, masterclasses, meet & greets, and a playhouse, all for younger film enthusiasts.

You can register for free accreditation HERE.  

The festival’s professional program the BUDAPEST CLASSIC LAB will take place at the French Institute between 13-15 September at 10 am- 3 pm. During the 3 days conference we will dedicate lectures and round-table conversations on the topics of film restauration, preservation and sharing.

You can read more about the professional program on the following link:  Budapest Classics Lab

Location: French Institute of Budapest, 17 Fő utca, Budapest.
Access is free of charge.

We are pleased to invite you also to join us at the first Budapest Archive Market which will be held on 15th September 2023 at the French Institute. The Market is an excellent opportunity for directors and producers who are working with archive materials and are seeking more partners in the field. The Archive Market welcomes international and domestic archives to exhibit their remarkable collections.

Our aims are to create a vibrant platform that brings together the archives, filmmakers, and film professionals to foster business cooperation and exchange. Don't miss this unique opportunity to celebrate and explore film heritage!

By participating, you will have the opportunity to connect with the Hungarian and international industry professionals and Archives, who can be your future partners in developing your projects.

Regarding the market for any additional information, please contact Asia Dér: Asia.andrejevna@gmail.com

We look forward to welcoming you in Budapest on these events.

Best wishes,

György Ráduly
director of NFI – Film Archive

 

 

 

 

A Season of Classic Films: Premiere of ‘Life of a Shock Force Worker’ in Biennale

The film Slike iz života udarnika (Life of a Shock Force Worker, 1972, Yugoslavia, Bahrudin ‘Bato’ Čengić) that was awarded the joint film restoration grant in the framework of the programme ‘A Season of Classic Films’, has been selected to premiere in the 80th Venice International Film Festival. The international restoration premiere will take place on Wednesday 6 September at 11:15 (sala Corinto) and there are two repeat screenings on the 7th September.

On the occasion of the premiere, the Director of Photography Mr. Karpo Godina will be present as well as the Slovenian Minister of Culture Dr. Asta Vrečko and representatives from the collaborating European film heritage institutions (Slovenian cinematheque, Croatian State Archives – Croatian Cinematheque, Austrian Film Museum, Film Center Sarajevo, ACE – Association des Cinémathèques Européennes).

About the film

The film is a collection of exquisitely beautiful tableaux vivants inspired by the lives of coal miners in post-WWII Yugoslavia. The main character is a miner who, despite being glorified for his hardworking achievements, lives a life that is anything but glitz and glamour.

Besides shining a light onto one of the blind spots on the map of European film heritage, the film touches upon the subject of propaganda — a pertinent matter in our post-truth era.

“Slike iz života udarnika was made based on a feeling, my feeling, the feeling of a man from Bosnia who saw the Stakhanovite tribe as the most moral form of acknowledging the working class, all that communism and a socialist society meant at the time,” commented filmmaker Bato Čengić during the TV programme Povečava, RTV Slovenia on 28 March 1996.

The film originally premiered at the Pula Film Festival in 1972 – out of competition – and was considered a representative of the film movement called New Yugoslav Cinema and widely known by its pejorative label Yugoslav Black Wave. Films of this movement depicted everyday life in Yugoslavia in a naturalistic way, showing it to be far less perfect than purported.

During the war in early 1990s, Bato Čengić deposited a 35mm print of the film at the Slovenian Cinematheque in Ljubljana. The image and sound negatives are preserved at the Croatian state archive – Croatian cinematheque. The Slovenian Cinematheque and the Croatian state archive have been taking care of these precious film materials, but so far without the possibility of restoring them.

About the restoration

For the 3rd edition of the programme A Season of Classic Films, ACE – Association des Cinémathèques Européennes presented the Joint Restoration Grant of € 50.000. A Season of Classic Films is an initiative developed by ACE to promote film preservation and is financially supported by the EU Creative Europe MEDIA programme. The objective of this specific grant is to underline the importance of preservation and restoration of film heritage through transnational collaboration of film institutions.

The Slovenian Cinematheque proposed the restoration of this film in collaboration with the Croatian state archive – Croatian cinematheque, the Austrian Film Museum and the Film Center Sarajevo.

At the Cannes Film Festival 2022, ACE awarded its Joint Restoration Grant to Life of a Shock Force Worker (1972). The jury, comprised of filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa, Pordenone Silent Film Festival director Jay Weissberg and director of the Cinema-Fiction Department of ARTE Claudia Tronnier, selected the film from a raft of proposals submitted by European film archives. “Large parts of the Yugoslavian film heritage have so far been underserved,” the jury wrote about its choice. “Life of a Shock Force Worker has strong imagery, but it is in desperate need of colour grading since the original has faded with time. A key asset is that ACE and the four partner institutions responsible for this restoration project will collaborate with DoP Karpo Godina.”

Thanks to the Joint Restoration Grant of the Season of Classic Films and additional funding by the Ministry of Culture of Republic of Slovenia, the restoration has been successfully carried out in 4K through a remarkable international collaboration.

The negative was cleaned and scanned at L’immagine Ritrovata in Bologna (Italy), the positive print was digitized at Film Center Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), the film’s restoration and colour correction were completed at Teleking in Ljubljana (Slovenia), and the sound restoration was carried out at 001 d.o.o. in Ljubljana (Slovenia).

The restored copy includes previously censored fragments.

 Discover the background of this international collaboration and the film's historical context (PDF)

Future screenings

The restored film is already planned for screenings in other international festivals as well as for a 90-day free online offer across the whole Europe via the ArteKino Classics programme in the coming autumn.

  Please see here the latest news of A Season of Classic Films, a series of free screenings of restored films and parallel activities across Europe designed to attract younger audiences to our shared cinematic cultural heritage.

  Please also check out the restored films that are currently available to watch for free via ArteKino Classics with subtitles in six languages.

 

 

SOUNDS OF SILENTS — Warsaw Silent Film Days 2023

From 15th to 17th September 2023, SOUNDS OF SILENTS will take place in Muranów Cinema, Warsaw, as a tribute to Anna Sienkiewicz-Rogowska, former deputy director of the Filmoteka Narodowa – Instytut Audiowizualny (FINA), a friend to many in the film community, and a wonderful advocate for culture.

  Read the full press release in English here.

The film programme includes, among others, the masterpiece “Earth” by Alexander Dovzhenko, the first documentary city symphony “Berlin: Symphony of a Great City” by Walter Ruttmann, René Clair’s last silent film “Two Timid Souls”, shorts from “The Cinema’s First Nasty Women” international project, as well as the Czechoslovak comedy “The Lovers of an Old Criminal”. 

Original musical arrangements and improvisations will be performed by Polish and Ukrainian musicians including Marcin Masecki, Jerzy Rogiewicz, Julek Płoski, Facheroia, and Baasch. The screening will include introductions by international experts and all films will have Polish and English subtitles.

The initiator and organiser, Siostry Archeo Collective, has been generously supported by esteemed international film archives, including several ACE members. The repertoire was created in collaboration with Deutsche Kinemathek, Eye Filmmuseum, La Cinémathèque française, San Francisco Silent Film Festival, Národní filmový archiv, Prague, Det Danske Filminstitut, and National Oleksandr Dovzhenko Film Centre. The media patrons are ARTE and podcast SpoilerMaster.

Strategic organisational support has been provided by the Ex Anima Foundation, which promotes the art of animation and socially engaged cinema not only through its own festivals, such as the Warsaw Animated Film Festival (WAFF), special screenings, and workshops, but also by supporting various international initiatives and events. 

“Promoting silent cinema in a modern and appealing way for contemporary audiences is another facet of our activities. We hope that, like other events we organise, such as WAFF, this one will capture the hearts of viewers,” says Ewelina Leszczyńska from the Ex Anima Foundation.

In doing so, organisers  “dedicate the event to the memory of Anna Sienkiewicz-Rogowska, a cultural manager who was devoted to film culture promotion in Warsaw and film education across schools in Poland. Who loved silent cinema, was a steadfast believer in education and inclusivity, and who we had the privilege to work with before her untimely death.”

More information:

soundsofsilents.pl
siostryarcheo@soundsofsilents.pl

International Classic Film Market and the Re>Birth Programme in Lyon 17-20 October 2023

MIFC - Marché International du Film Classique - Home

 

The International Classic Film Market, a market dedicated to film classics, is organized every year as part of the festival Lumière in Lyon, France, with meetings, roundtables, cocktails and screenings. For its 11th edition, the Market will be held on 17-20 October 2023, welcoming again a large number of right-owners and major catalogues. This year, the International Classic Film Market will also feature the new Re>Birth Programme, with special events dedicated to sales agents and buyers on Thursday, October 19 and Friday, October 20.

Designed in a collaborative spirit, the new “Re>Birth programme” brings together:

  • Right-owners or representatives of classic films looking for new commercial outlets.
  • Professionals looking for new opportunities: buyers, sellers, distributors, programmers, laboratories, publishers and all other partners who can contribute to the new exploitation of films.

The program will include a selection of feature-length films, recently restored or in the process of being restored, with a target of theatrical re-release, distribution media (TV, platforms, video publishing, etc.), international sales, financial partnerships, etc., on the scale of different territories.

For this first edition of the “Re>Birth Programme”, the following will be eligible:

  1. Restored films certified Lumière Classics by the festival Lumière 2023.
  2. Films with a restoration project submitted by Market accredited members.

These events present a new approach to expand the offer and promote classics on all media.

  • Re>Birth Programme #1 “films with label”: Thursday afternoon, October 19
  • Re>Birth Program #2 “films to be restored”: Friday morning, October 20

Each session will consist of 6 presentations of films pitched by their right-owners or representatives (15 minutes per pitch with video excerpts) in the Karbone room. One-to-one meetings will then be organized between the project owners and interested professionals in the Market Village.

More information and the forms to apply are on the MIFC website.

If you are interested in this project at the festival Lumière and its Market in Lyon, please reach out to mifc@institut-lumiere.org.

 

ACE Survey on Existing Analogue Film Heritage Resources

Until the 15th of July, a small survey of the existing technical resources (and the needs) for photochemical operations is open for ACE members. The aim is to make this information public and available. This will allow all ACE members to communicate to our community what resources we have in this area of preservation and exhibition of analogue film heritage.

In particular, the plan is to make this information available on the ACE website, so that everyone can easily find partners with common challenges, needs, and problems. Thanks to the synergy of ACE members and this knowledge sharing, this survey should help the film preservation community in finding common solutions.

For any question, please contact Rui Machado from Cinemateca Portuguesa: rui.machado@cinemateca.pt

 

 

ACE Workshop – Digital Preservation and Distribution of Film Heritage: 27 June 2023

This year’s ACE Workshop will focus on the state of digital preservation and the strategies for sharing digital content, VOD platforms, archival festivals, and cross-border access to European film heritage.

Click here for the full programme and speakers.

Date, Time: Tuesday 27 June, 13:30 – 17:00

Location: MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, Via Giovanni Minzoni 14, 40121 Bologna, Italy

Admission is free.

 

DE-BIAS – Detecting and Cur(at)ing Harmful Language in Cultural Heritage Collections

The EU-funded DE-BIAS project (January 2023 – December 2024) tackles outdated and harmful language in cultural heritage collections. Led by the DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, in collaboration with thematic and domain aggregators and technical partners in the Europeana network, DE-BIAS aims to foster inclusivity and respect in digital collections.

DE-BIAS will develop an AI-powered tool to automatically detect problematic terms in metadata. It will provide information on their problematic nature and suggest appropriate alternatives using contextual vocabularies.

These vocabularies will focus on migration and colonial history, gender and sexual identity, and ethnicity and ethnoreligious identity. Collaboratively developed with marginalized communities, these vocabularies empower communities to reshape historical descriptions affected by outdated colonial, patriarchal, and hegemonic structures.

By fostering collaboration, DE-BIAS aims to enhance representation, participation, and inclusivity in museums and archives. It will provide capacity-building workshops and a knowledge base for cultural heritage professionals to address bias in their collections. The project will analyze over 4.5 million records in English, Italian, German, French, and Dutch, including metadata coming from film archives through the European Film Gateway to Europeana.

Derogatory language in item descriptions on Europeana will be automatically identified and flagged. The DFF is looking forward to delivering relevant project findings and results to the ACE membership in due course.

Learn more about the project at https://pro.europeana.eu/.

European Film Gateway DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum