Category: Events

ACE reveals the fourth edition of A Season of Classic Films 2023

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.

Discover the full programme here (PDF)

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 Death from 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.

 

 

ArteKino Classics 2023 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.

ArteKino Classics 2023 Programme (PDF)
English, Français, Deutsch, Español, Italiano, Polski.

Watch the films online:
English, Français, Deutsch, Español, Italiano, Polski.

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!

 

PAST NEWS ABOUT ARTEKINO CLASSICS

2023-02-20 | PRESENTATION OF 2023 ARTEKINO CLASSICS DURING BERLINALE

2022-03-29 | ARTEKINO CLASSICS: A NEW LOOK AT EUROPE’S FILM HERITAGE

2022-02-01 | ACE – ARTE PARTNERSHIP

Dear Friends and Colleagues, 

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. 

You can read more about the film on the festival’s page.

Presskit (PDF)

If you’re at Berlinale, don’t miss out! 

Screening dates: 

Mon Feb 20, 19:00 at Cubix 6
Tue Feb 21, 13:30 at Cubix 3
Sat Feb 25, 11:00 at Cubix 3

Come and see us at Martin Gropius Bau booth nr, 176!

György Ráduly

NFI Hungary – Film Archive

A NEW LOOK AT EUROPE’S FILM HERITAGE: ARTEKINO CLASSICS

For those heading to the Berlinale this year, please feel very welcome to join us for this ArteKino panel discussion at the Deutsche 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.

In English ǀ Free admittance

Panel Information (PDF) in English and German

 

PAST NEWS ABOUT ARTEKINO CLASSICS

2022-03-29 | ARTEKINO CLASSICS: A NEW LOOK AT EUROPE’S FILM HERITAGE

2022-02-01 | ACE – ARTE PARTNERSHIP

 

 

Follow ACE on social media for the latest news: Facebook / Instagram / Twitter

Call for papers | Exposing the Film Apparatus: what, where, when and how?

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

 

Premiere of opera film Orfeusz és Eurydiké on the longest night

This year, the Hungarian National Film Institute (NFI) presents the newly restored opera film Orfeusz és Eurydiké (Orpheus and Eurydice, 1985) as part of the European project A Season of Classic Films. Enikő Eszenyi and Sándor Téry star in István Gaál’s version of the mythological work. The premiere will take place in the recently renovated screening room of the Film Archive on 21 December, the winter solstice. It will then also be available to view online for a week between the two holidays. The cinema screening is free of charge but registration is required.

With his final cinema piece made in 1985, István Gaál not only set Gluck’s iconic opera to film but he transformed it into an incisive auteur movie through rich visual images and intense symbolism. He portrays Orpheus not as a hero of mythology but rather as a fallible, struggling human who is confronted by the mystery of death. Sándor Sára was cinematographer on this spectacular film. It ranks among the classics of auteur opera films alongside Ingmar Bergman’s The Magic Flute and Joseph Losey’s Don Giovanni.

The movie Orfeusz és Eurydiké was made on the basis of the Vienna version (1762) of the opera that concludes in tragedy. However, Gaál made radical changes to the Gluck work: his Orpheus sings not in a castrato tenor or alto but instead – in line with ancient Greek mythology – in a masculine baritone, sung by Lajos Miller. Eurydice is sung by Maddalena Bonifaccio, Ámor by Veronika Kincses, while the part of Orpheus is played by Sándor Téry, Eurydice by a youthful Enikő Eszenyi and Amor by Ákos Sebestyén. The Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra and Hungarian Radio and Television Choir, with Tamás Vásáry in the role of conductor, provide musical accompaniment.

The film presentation is realised within the framework of the international project A Season of Classic Films organised by ACE (Association des Cinémathèques Européennes – Association of European Cinematheques) and sponsored by Creative Europe. The objective of this international project is to promote the digital restoration of gems of European film art and, by ensuring their widespread presentation, to draw attention to the work of European film archives.

In 2021, the NFI – Film Archive presented György Kovásznai’s animation cult movie Habfürdő (Bubble Bath) in the framework of this programme. This year, it is making István Gaál’s recently restored opera film available on the big screen and online.

REGISTRATION for the cinema screening at 18:00 on 21 December, NFI – Film Archive screening room (1021 Budakeszi út 51/E): https://nfi.hu/filmarchivum/urlapok/orfeusz-es-eurydike-operafilm-premier.html

ONLINE PREMIERE – 26 December 2022 – 1 January 2023, with subtitles in English, French and Hungarian: https://www.facebook.com/events/668636598258833

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 | Twitter.

 

ABOUT THE ASSOCIATION DES CINÉMATHÈQUES EUROPÉENNES (ACE)

The Association of European Cinematheques (Association des Cinémathèques Européennes – ACE) is an affiliation of 49 European national and regional film archives. Its role is to safeguard the European film heritage and make the rich audiovisual records collected and preserved by the various film archives accessible to the public. ACE members are non-profit institutions committed to the FIAF Code of Ethics.

Follow ACE news on social media  Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

 

 

A Season of Classic Films: The Balkan War

This year marks 110 years since The Balkan Wars (1912-1913). The Bulgarian National Film Archive (BNFA) will commemorate the event with a digital restoration of the film The Balkan War (1913, dir. Alexander Ivanov Zhekov). The film is a unique visual document of this important European military conflict. The presentation will include original audio commentary by film historian Petar Kardjilov and new original music.

The world premiere screening of this restoration will be held in BNFA’s cinema ‘Odeon’ on Tuesday 13 December 2022 as part of ACE’s A Season of Classic Films. The event will be recorded and uploaded on BNFA’s YouTube channel for free online access until 31 December.

The Balkan War / Балканската Война [Balkanskata Voyna] | Bulgaria, 1913, 55’, non-fiction

Director-Cinematography: Alexander Ivanov Zhekov. Producer: unknown. Physical characteristics of first release: 35mm, 55’, B&W, silent, Bulgarian intertitles. Film copy screened during A Season of Classic Films: Restoration premiere. DCP 2K (for cinema screening) and ProRes (online). 55’, B&W, silent, Bulgarian intertitles. Subtitles: English. Copyright: Bulgarian National Film Archive.

In the course of the First World War, Europe has gradually established means and methods in filming military actions. In 1912-1913, when this film was shot, footage of direct combat was rare.

As film historian Petar Kardjilov notes, “Only a few films in Bulgaria’s film making are said to be legendary. One of them is The Balkan War. It is a well preserved and unique cinema document of military conflict of recent European history. The Balkan War was one of the first large-scale armed conflicts after the beginning of the cinema age. It was a media event and film played its important part.”

* Free cinema screening: Tuesday 13 December 2022 at 18:00. Free tickets can be picked up at the ticket office of the Odeon cinema on the day of the screening.

* Free worldwide online premiere: The event will be recorded and uploaded on BNFA’s YouTube channel.

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Let’s celebrate International Animation Day!

Association des Cinémathèques Européennes – ACE and Creative Europe MEDIA join the celebration of the International Animation Day on 28 October, a perfect occasion to spotlight the magnificent contribution that the ‘grand dame’ of animation – Lotte Reiniger (1899 -1981) – has made to the field with her oeuvre of pioneering silhouette films.

To ensure that her legacy lives on, the DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, is currently working to restore eight films from Reiniger’s early work. The films will premiere in a free screening with live music on 14 December, as part of A Season of Classic Films, an initiative by ACE that features free screenings of restored films and parallel activities across Europe to attract younger audiences to our shared cinematic cultural heritage, supported by Creative Europe MEDIA. Details about the screening event at DFF to be announced soon.

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

About the International Animation Day

The International Animated Film Association (ASIFA) created the International Animation Day in 2002, to celebrate the birth of animation historically marked by the first public performance of projected moving images at Emile Reynaud’s Theatre Optique on 28 October 1892 in Paris.

Starting in France with 120 locations, ASIFA now coordinates and helps promote activities in more than 50 countries all over the world, putting the art of animation in the limelight in a global worldwide celebration of animation. Find out what’s happening this year at http://iadasifa.net/.

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Film Restored Festival in Berlin (21.9.–25.9.22)

Since 2015, the Film Restored Festival has been dedicated to film heritage in the digital age. Digital restorations celebrate their premieres here, filmmakers and restorers  report on practical aspects of digitization processes, and experts discuss relevant political and aesthetic questions.

The seventh edition of the festival, titled “For real?!”, explores the numerous layers of the documentary form, whether they are aesthetic, political, or technical. It takes its cue from the 80th birthday of exceptional director Werner Herzog on 5 September, who has constantly tested the boundaries between fictional and documentary representations in his work and who has set international standards with his films. Over the course of five days, the festival will shed light on the aesthetic, political, and material layers of the documentary form in film history.

In addition, by choosing this theme, Film Restored aims to draw attention to the vast documentary film history from all around the globe, which have so far hardly been considered in the context of film preservation and digitization efforts.

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Budapest Classics Film Marathon 2022 – Budapest, Vienna, Hollywood

The fifth edition of Budapest Classics Film Marathon, the international festival of restored films organised by National Film Institute is about to start and will run from September 13-18.

Over six days, the audience will be able to enjoy recently restored, popular classics and rarities for a total of 100 of the finest films from global movie history. The goal of Budapest Classics Film Marathon (BKFM) is to position the values of Hungarian film in the focus of domestic and international attention, and present the best of European film heritage to a Hungarian audience. Once again, the highlight of the festival is the transformation of the square in front of St. Stephen’s Basilica into a free open-air cinema for four evenings.

The main theme of the September festival is the Central European roots of Hollywood. The core of the programme comprises works by artists who, setting out from Budapest and frequently with stop-offs in Vienna and Berlin, made it to Hollywood where they achieved global fame. The lives of those individuals coming from territories that were formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and exporting Central European culture to America were often just as exciting as the works they created.

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