IMF Archive Workshop

EYE Filmmuseum

Making movies is costly and time-consuming. Preserving them is critical.

The IMF UG invites you to join worldwide experts around program focused on the needs of public archives for the preservation of movies, and the applicability of the Interoperable Master Format (IMF) in these applications. The workshop will take place on the 13th September from 1pm–5pm at the Eye Film Museum, 1 IJpromenade, 1031 KT Amsterdam in the Top of the Roof room.

The program is now online at https://www.imfug.com/events/2019-09-13-workshop-preserving-movies-with-imf/

Access is free but limited up to specific number. Registration for the event is necessary and can be done at https://imf-in-archives-ibc-2019.eventbrite.com

 

A Season of Classic Films: European classics screened at cultural heritage venues across Europe

The EU funding for film heritage screenings announced in March has been allocated.

Press Release

This summer, European film classics will be screened in some of Europe’s most iconic cultural heritage venues. From tomorrow until the end of September, classic films from across the EU will be screened free of charge in a wide variety of venues in 13 EU countries – from small towns to capital cities – highlighting Europe’s rich and diverse cultural heritage. As part of the wider restoration and digitisation of heritage films, the event series “A Season of Classic Films” is supported by Creative Europe MEDIA programme.

The Yugoslav Film Archive Day – 70th Anniversary Celebration

Jugoslav Pantelić speaking
The Yugoslav Film Archive Day

Golden Seal Awarded film directorsJune 6, The Yugoslav Film Archive (YFA) Day, was marked by first offering a review of the history of the institution, celebrating its 70thanniversary, followed by the Golden Seal Award ceremony, awarded to former students of the Prague Film Academy who became distinguished film directors – Lordan Zafranović, Srđan Karanović, Goran Marković, Rajko Grlić and Goran Paskaljević.

The festivities in the packed Makavejev Hall were attended by former YFA managers and guests of the festival – representatives of various film archives from the region and the world.

The Yugoslav Film Archive’s director, Jugoslav Pantelić, pointed out “the multigenerational effort on the part of those who created and create film art, and on the part of the Yugoslav Film Archive’s employees, which enabled us to feel proud today, seven decades since its founding”.

With an exhaustive overview of the history, funds and activities of the YFA, accompanied by words and images on the screen, Pantelić announced the release of a monograph on the YFA, as well as a new permanent museum exhibition, both scheduled for this fall. A video showcasing the current project of digitally restoring the Serbian film legacy, named “VIP Kinoteka”, was also screened.

The Nitrate Film Festival

Saša Erdeljanović, the manager of YFA’s archives, opened the Nitrate Film Festival, of which he is the director and the selector. The tagline of this year’s Nitrate Film Festival was “70 films for 70 years”. The festival featured films of various genres, including banned, recently unearthed, and newly digitally restored films. Also, for the first time, it featured 9.5 mm films shot in the 1920s and ‘30s, and a review of films about Serbia and Yugoslavia produced until 1941. This year the festival featured films from over 30 film archives around the world.

A special screening of Orson Wells’s The Other Side of the Wind opened the 21st Nitrate Film Festival after the Film Archive Day festivities. The festival ran June 6–16.

Panel Discussion

A panel discussion entitled “The preservation of cinematic cultural heritage and challenges of the digital age on the territory of former Yugoslavia” was held on June 7, 2019, as part of The Nitrate Film Festival.

panel discussion at YFA

Representatives from national film archives of the region joined the panel: Tatjana Rezec Štibilj from the Republic of Slovenia’s Film Archive; Ivan Nedoh from “Slovenska kinoteka”; Dinko Majcen and Mladen Burić from Croatia’s Film Archive, Andro Martinović from the Film Archive of Montenegro; Devleta Filipović from the Film Archive of Bosnia and Herzegovina; Vladimir Angelov from Macedonian “Kinoteka na Makedonija”; Ksenija Zelenović, representing of The Yugoslav Film Archive, and Jugoslav Pantelić, its director, who also moderated the discussion.

The participants welcomed and accepted in principle Pantelić’s proposal to establish closer co-operation among the Film Archives of the region. This would entail a Film Archive being able to carry out a digital restoration of a film made during the times of joint state of Yugoslavia, in case the original materials are being held in the archive of another ex-Yugoslav republic.

Besides sharing practical information, primarily in the field of digital restoration, another proposal made by the Yugoslav Film Archive was met with overall approval: that the archives and cinémathèques of non-EU countries of former Yugoslavia (Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Montenegro), before using the technical support provided by European Commission through its TAIEX instrument, jointly determine the date, subject, and location of a meeting which would include interested professionals from these territories.

Representatives of all six states agreed to strengthen their mutual co-operation in terms of exchanging respective experiences and carrying out mutual projects.

CEN TC457 Presentation in Bologna

Photo: third meeting of the CEN/DIN TC 457 in October 2018 in Berlin

The CEN TC457 project team is pleased to invite you to a presentation in Bologna on the progress of our work on the CEN Preservation Package aimed for the digital long-term archiving of films.
The 50 minute session will start with a 20 min presentation on the concepts and ideas for this digital long-term archive format followed by a panel and a discussion with the audience.
It will take place on Monday 24 June at 11:00 am at the DMS auditorium, Piazzetta Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bologna.
We are looking forward to see you there.

68mm Mutoscope and Biograph from the Eye Filmmuseum collection

The films of the Mutoscope and Biograph are quite special. Not only because they are very old and rare, but also because of their exceptional image quality.

The films of the Mutoscope and Biograph are the oldest films in the Eye vaults. The collection of Mutoscope and Biograph films consists of 200 films of approximately one minute each. The films are quite rare, only the British Film Institute has a similar smaller collection.
The films were shot on a very large format that was quickly outdated, but which yielded spectacularly beautiful images: 68mm. Apart from the format, the material is unusual because it doesn’t have sprocket holes, so the image fills the entire width of the film strip. This produces an image quality that is comparable to IMAX – 8 to 16K in digital terminology.

Most 68mm films contain rare images from various locations in Europe, with an image quality that after 120 years is still one of the best that film can transmit.

Watch film

William Kentridge – Ten Drawings for Projection

In 2015, the South African artist William Kentridge donated 10 Drawings for Projection (1989-2011) to the Eye Filmmuseum. These ten short animation films marked Kentridge’s breakthrough on the international art scene. Illuminating the eventful history of South Africa, these films will be shown at Eye this summer as part of a larger installation. Also included in the exhibition is the film installation O Sentimental Machine (2015), featuring historical footage of Russian revolutionist Leon Trotsky. The exhibition takes place during the Holland Festival, for which William Kentridge is Associate Artist. Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam, 3 June – 1 September 2019.

Film heritage: access, exhibition and distribution in the 21st century


ACE workshop during Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival, Bologna

Tuesday 25 June, 2–5 p.m., MAMbo, Museum of Modern Art, via Don Giovanni Minzoni 14

In 2008 ACE started the European Film Gateway (EFG) project, linked to Europeana, as the first project to make our film heritage available online. The project confirmed the importance of metadata, and highlights its interoperability. The second step for ACE was the EFG / World War I project, a curatorial project for our film collections online. At this stage, more than 53,000 videos (videos, not films!) are available.

Read more

The Film Corner Reloaded

In 2016 Fondazione Cineteca Italiana launched ‘The Film Corner. Online and Offline Activities for Film Literacy’, a co-financed Project within the frame of the Creative Europe Program, based on the creation of an online interactive platform especially devised for young people and their teachers.

The general framework of the project is provided by the “Framework for Film Education” edited by the BFI in 2015. Experts from different search fields have been contributing to designing and creating the platform content, which is dedicated to a cross-curricular approach that connects film to other subjects, languages and topics. The cross-curricular attitude is a core aspect of the platform, whose aim is to support teachers in working with their students, giving them skills and knowledge through an ancillary use of film.

Read more