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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Full programme and award of the Joint Film Restoration Grant announced at Cannes
ACE (Association des Cinémathèques Européennes) unveiled May 19 at the Dutch Pavilion in Cannes details of the fourth A Season of Classic Films, a series of free screenings designed to attract younger audiences to our shared cinematic cultural heritage. The 2023 programme will run June to December 2023 across European cinemas and online.
The initiative also seeks to raise awareness of the work of European film archives, connecting the public with cinema history and the significance of film preservation.
European film heritage
The fourth edition of A Season of Classic Films will comprise a diverse programme curated by more than 20 European film heritage institutions. The world premiere restorations will be presented as free screenings across Europe until the end of 2023 and will be supplemented by educational tools to attract younger audiences to European film heritage, such as live music, introductions by filmmakers etc.
The films span early silent classics, thrillers and romantic comedies, to works focusing on current topics such as feminism or the impact of urban planning to environment. Many of the films will be globally accessible online for free for a limited time to further promote European film heritage to international audiences. All films are available with English subtitles.
A Season of Classic Films is supported by the EU Creative Europe MEDIA programme.
Joint Restoration Grant
During the Cannes event, ACE also presented a Joint Restoration Grant of €40,000 for the restoration of the Hungarian ghost story After Death (1920) by Alfréd Deésy. The esteemed jury, made up of filmmakers Radu Jude and Saodat Ismailova, ARTE France general director Olivier Père and film curator-educator Cecilia Barrionuevo, chose After Deathfrom an array of proposals submitted by Europe’s film heritage institutions.
An international collaboration between The National Film Institute Hungary – Film Archive, the Belgian National Film Archive and La Cinémathèque française will enable the new restoration of one of the few ghost stories to have survived from the silent film era. There is only one known remaining copy of the film and it features richly tinted images. Adapted from a novel written by Phantom of the Opera author Gaston Leroux, the film will be presented in a new 4K edition as part of A Season of Classic Films.
Launch event at Cannes
The Cannes A Season of Classic Films presentation and award of the Joint Restoration Grant took place 19 May at 10am at the Dutch Pavilion in Cannes. The event was moderated by Paulina Reizi (Eye Filmmuseum, Coordinator of A Season of Classic Films). Special guests included Sarah Brunet (Policy Officer, MEDIA and Audiovisual Support Programmes, DG Connect, European Commission), Michal Bregant (ACE President), Olivier Père (General Director ARTE France) and Cecilia Barrionuevo (Film at Lincoln Center – Programmer at-large / ECAM Industria).
Joint Film Restoration Grant 2023 – Jury Members
CECILIA BARRIONUEVO – film curator and educator
Cecilia Barrionuevo is currently Head of Seminars and International Relations at the Madrid Film School (ECAM) and film programmer at Lincoln Center. Barrionuevo was the artistic director of the Mar del Plata International Film Festival (2018 – 2021) and a member of the festival’s programming team since 2010. Barrionuevo also co-edited several publications, including the bilingual collection of “Las Naves Cine”, and has taught film classes around the world. She is also a member of the advisory board for the Film Study Center at Harvard University. In 2020, she was awarded with the honorary title of Chevalier of the Arts and Letters from the French Ministry of Culture.
SAODAT ISMAILOVA – filmmaker
Saodat Ismailova is a filmmaker, based in Tashkent and Paris. She is an important voice within the first generation of Central Asian artists to come of age in the post-Soviet era. She studied film and has made fiction films and documentaries, which have won awards at various international festivals. Her work focusses on the intersection of cinema and visual art. The use of archival footage is a recurring feature of Ismailova’s work. Her films and artwork have been featured in the Venice Biennale, Documenta (Kassel), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Berlin International Film Festival, Stedelijk Museum and Eye Filmmuseum (Amsterdam).
RADU JUDE – filmmaker
Radu Jude is one of the most renowned European directors of today. His work has been recognised with numerous awards from international film festivals, including the Golden Bear for Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn in 2021 and the Silver Berlin Bear for Aferim! in 2015 at the Berlin International Film Festival. Jude graduated from the Film Directing Department of the Media University of Bucharest. He started his career as a director’s assistant, including for films by Costa-Gavra and Cristi Puiu. Jude also directed several award-winning short films, among them The Tube with a Hat (2006) – the most successful Romanian short film ever. Most recently, his short film The Potemkinists was screened in 2022 at Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in Cannes.
OLIVIER PÈRE – General Director ARTE France Cinéma
Olivier Père joined the French Cinémathèque in 1995, and soon became in charge of the programme, organising numerous retrospectives. Since 1997, he has been writing for the cultural publication “Les Inrockuptibles” on film and television programmes. Between 2004 and 2009, Père headed the Directors’ Fortnight, independent section at the Cannes Film Festival. From 2009 until 2012, he served as the artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival. In 2012, he became General Director of ARTE France Cinéma. He is also the Artistic Director of ArteKino and collaborates with the Association des Cinémathèques Européennes for the ArteKino Classics programme.
Today, 20 March 2023, ARTE launched the second edition of ArteKino Classics. Under this label, ARTE will be showing rarely seen European films – true gems of the 7th art – as part of its linear and non-linear catalogue.
This year’s programme includes some 20 films, including major works by Hungarian director Márta Mészáros, Swedish director Mai Zetterling and Czech director Vera Chytilová. This eclectic collection will be broadcast in Germany and France and made available online at arte.tv, where a rotation of films will be available throughout Europe with subtitles in six European languages.
Swiss filmmaker Claude Goretta’s The Lacemaker, which brought Isabelle Huppert to the attention of a wider audience, will open the festivities on the TV channel.
With this initiative – a hitherto unique event for public television – ARTE is taking a fresh look at the history of European cinema from 1945 to 1995. The programme invites European audiences to (re)discover both popular classics and films that broke new ground in cinematography and social discourse. Making them available online and in multiple languages also allows new and younger audiences to discover classic films easily.
Since last year, ArteKino Classics has been an integral part of ArteKino, which, together with ArteKino Festival and ArteKino Selection, has been presenting young European filmmakers and their take on our times since 2016, providing a bridge between the young cinema of today and heritage cinema.
The ARTE Group selects the works, in cooperation with the Association of European Cinematheques (ACE). All these films have been recently restored, many of them in the framework of ACE’s A Season of Classic Films, and about one third of them were made by women.
Supported by the Creative Europe MEDIA Programme, the ArteKino project is delivered by the ARTE Group and ACE.
Join the conversation on social media using the #ArteKinoClassics hashtag!
The National Film Institute Hungary – Film Archive is happy to share that our latest restoration Szürkület /Twilight (1990) by György Fehér will have its world premiere as part of Berlinale Classics.
For those heading to the Berlinale this year, please feel very welcome to join us for this ArteKino panel discussion at theDeutsche Kinemathek!
Monday, 20.02.2023, 15:00-16:00 Veranstaltungsraum 4. Etage, Deutsche Kinemathek
Panel: Nadav Lapid (Filmregisseur / Berlinale Retrospektive), Olivier Père (ARTE France), Nina Goslar (ARTE / ZDF), Michal Bregant (ACE / Národní filmový archiv, Prague), Paulina Reizi (ACE / Eye Filmmuseum). Moderation: Elisa Jochum (Deutsche Kinemathek).
Being young in today’s world means growing up with digital technology; in the past few years, the younger generation has also developed a renewed consciousness of socio-political issues. At the intersection of these two developments, digitally restored films on – and from – past societal transformations bear the potential to enrich cultural discourse. ArteKino Classics, a new pan-European streaming venture of ARTE, with a special focus on the modern film heritage of 1945-1995, tries to realize this potential. Over a period of three months, ARTE provides 20 national film classics from almost as many European countries with subtitles in six languages (French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, and Polish). The 20 recently restored films were selected in close consultation with the Association des Cinémathèques Européennes (ACE). The programme invites a young European audience to (re)discover both popular classics and films that broke new ground in cinematography and social discourse.
A message from Giovanna Fossati, Annie van den Oever and Erkki Huhtamo:
In 2016 we published Exposing the Film Apparatus: The Film Archive as a Research Laboratory, which sprang from a workshop in 2013 under this title. It addresses the rather new awareness of the prominence of media technologies in culture and discusses how such an awareness impacts the archival and curatorial consciousness of those working in film archives, science, technology, and media museums at the time. It seems to us though that there have been significant changes in the field of archives, apparatus collections as well as in the world of the arts, museums, teaching, and research since then, raising newly relevant questions that need to be addressed. We recognize three fields which we would want to focus our attention on in this upcoming volume: (1) archiving and curating, (2) research and teaching, and (3) artist practices and experimentation. Our aim is to contribute to the mapping of these developments in the fields of collecting, curating, archiving, exhibiting, and the use of apparatus collections in research and teaching.
We want to focus on new developments from a fresh, global, diverse and inclusive post-colonial perspective and we are specifically interested in topics and questions understudied so far – and we hope that you will bring examples to this project we might have missed otherwise. We also want to address a series of simple, general, practical questions: which public and private entities prioritize the apparatus collections today and how? Who studies these collections? How are they archived and curated? How (if at all) are apparatuses kept operational in a time they were (technically) not made for?
Furthermore, we want to take the impact of the covid-19 pandemic into account as it has evoked new questions and concerns in all three of these fields.
Sections of the book will be dedicated to different themes — archiving & curating, research & teaching, artist practices — and each section will be introduced with an essay by one of the editors. In line with the format adopted for the 2016 book, we will feature thirty contributions in total, each focusing on a different device. The length of each separate contribution will be about six pages (2400 words). A full-page illustration of the technology discussed will be included with each essay as a focal point. Moreover, a short technical description and a theoretical framework will be added to each essay to announce its topic and approach.
This call for papers addresses archivists, curators, projectionists, theorists, film and media historians, media artists, archaeologists, educationists, and new media scholars.
Each contributor is invited to reflect upon a specific device. The technical and theoretical reflection on the device will differ (depending on the author’s interests and expertise. We stimulate and support a great variety of different approaches. Proposals may include the following topics:
Histories of use and representation
Global media cultures: non-Western media archaeology and histories of use
Best practices in archiving histories of use
Sustainable approaches for demonstrating working devices in heritage
institutions
The reception and evaluation of a device by critics or specific audiences
Object-oriented archaeologies of media technologies
Hands-on media history in practice-based research or education
Intersectional media archaeology
The development of a certain dispositif
Artist practices and experimentation
Artist-driven media archaeologies
Changing policies and priorities in acquiring, preserving and curating film apparatus collections
Of further importance are ever-relevant questions about the role of apparatus collections or archival devices in the history and development of film and cinema, or their role and significance as an object of teaching and research, restoration, and archiving both inside and outside of the archive or museum.
This book is meant for use in film archives, film, technology, media and modern art museums, libraries and universities. We aim at a visually attractive book that stands out in art museums and art schools, presenting a detailed and relevant inventory of devices used by artists, scholars, amateurs, and cinematographers.
Submissions
We invite you to submit a 300-word proposal, including 3 bibliographic references, 3 keywords, as well as a short biography of 100 words at the following email address: exposingthefilmapparatus2024@gmail.com. The deadline for proposal submissions is 10 January 2023. On the basis of the proposals, writers will be invited to submit full manuscripts (2400 words) – you will be contacted no later than 1 February 2023. The deadline for the full manuscript is 1 September 2023, after which each contribution will be peer-reviewed. We aim to present the book at the Eye International Conference in May 2024.
Please note that we do not accept complete manuscripts for consideration without an invitation.
Time frame publication:
Presentation book: May 2024 Peer feedback: 15 November 2023 Peer reviews: (6 weeks) until 15 October 2023 Submission all individual manuscripts: 1 September 2023 Response proposal: no later than 1 February 2023 Submission abstract: 10 January 2023 Call for papers: 22 November 2022
It is with great sadness that we announce the sudden death of our colleague Marleen Labijt on December 19th, 2022. Marleen was a faithful staff member of Eye Filmmuseum for the last 30 years. She started as a booker for our distribution branch before moving on to a pool responsible for both producing programs and archival loans. She took full responsibility for Archival Loans 20 years ago, and many colleagues abroad have known her in this capacity.
Marleen was an important contact between Eye Filmmuseum and the outside world. She was passionate about providing access to our film collection for our FIAF colleagues, for many festivals and for countless theaters, both in the Netherlands and abroad. She advocated for our film heritage, prepared programs and promoted our restorations. To her colleagues inside Eye Filmmuseum, she was always a dedicated supporter of her outside clients, always trying to help with every request. No program was too big that she couldn’t handle it, and no theater was too small that it didn’t deserve her full cooperation. To her clients, she was always a staunch protector of the integrity of the films on loan and a relentless guardian of good programming practice. She has facilitated countless presentations of films from our collection over the whole world. We shall miss her.
Archival Loans will continue in the spirit that Marleen showed us. You can still reach us at ArchivalLoans@eyefilm.nl.
For those who wish to send condolences to her family, you can use the same address and we will make sure that your message reaches them.
Maureen Mens Corporate Communicatie Eye Filmmuseum
