Category: News

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

 

 

Online Exhibition: FRAMES OF RECONSTRUCTION now available in 5 languages

The online exhibition Frames of Reconstruction. Realities and Visions of Recovering Europe. Documentary Film in Postwar Visual Culture is now accessible at www.frames-reconstruction.eu.

Available in English, Czech, French, German and Italian and providing access through a variety of different thematic, temporal and spatial entry points, the exhibition is the result of the EU-funded research project ViCTOR-E. Frames of Reconstruction tells a visual history of the European postwar reconstruction efforts through non-fiction films that functioned as witnesses and political agents alike. A crucial tool of communication of the transformative era, newsreels, short documentaries, and amateur films, are the main focus of the exhibition that also features oral history videos recorded with eye witnesses from the Czech Republic, France, Germany, and Italy. The exhibition also features focused e-learning activities, model lessons and sources for teaching Post-War history with and through film.

Several ACE member archives as well as other heritage institutions have contributed film clips, among them Narodni Filmovy Archiv, CSC – Archivio Nazionale Cinema Impresa, DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, who together with ACE and EFG – European Film Gateway were associated partners of the project.

The exhibition is connected to the European Film Gateway and gives access to a larger thematic collection of over 600 films relevant to the project theme.

The ViCTOR-E project ran from 2019 through 2022 and was coordinated by the Goethe University Frankfurt (Germany). Other project partners were the Université Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne, France, the Università degli Studi di Udine, Italy and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The online exhibition was designed by Athena Research Center, Athens. Funded by the HERA Joint Research Programme which is co-funded by BMBF via DLR-PT, CAS, ANR, MUR and the European Commission through Horizon 2020.

Explore the exhibition at www.frames-reconstruction.eu

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 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.

Read more

Let’s celebrate International Animation Day!

ACE – Association des Cinémathèques Européennes 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 can be found here.

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/.

Read more

New titles on Eye Film Player

New titles enrich the Eye Film Player’s selection. Recent additions are the films of Johan van der Keuken and The Forbidden Quest by Peter Delpeut.

Johan van der Keuken (1938-2001) was a man with an exceptional double talent, who filmed with a photographer’s eye and shot photographs with the eye of a filmmaker. Eye Film Player showcases the entire film oeuvre of Van der Keuken in the collection, from the classics Blind Kind (1964) and Beppie (1965) to his later work, including the now internationally celebrated documentaries, such as Amsterdam Global Village (1996) and The Long Holiday (2000). Eye Filmmuseum is currently devoting a major exhibition to the work of Johan van der Keuken (on display until February 5, 2023). Until February 5, Eye will publish two Van der Keuken films monthly on the Eye Film Player.


Eye Film Player is also the perfect place to discover The Forbidden Quest by Peter Delpeut, a magical story of the sole survivor of an expedition to the South Pole built with historical silent film footage. A compelling adventure film about murder, cannibalism and mystic salvation, a new digital restoration of the film by Eye is now available to watch free of charge worldwide. With films such as Lyrical Nitrate (1991), The Forbidden Quest and Diva Dolorosa (1999) Peter Delpeut –a former film programmer at Eye Filmmuseum– set a standard for working with archival sources. The old, restored pieces of film are presented as relics of history; their presence in the film archives inspires a stream of new narratives, representing a dynamic approach to the beauty of our filmed past.

 

European Film Academy Starts Heritage Department

The European Film Academy is broadening its scope and embracing European cinema from the classics to the contemporary to celebrate the rich and diverse film heritage of Europe. This will, of course, include the work of the honorary award recipients, such as the European Lifetime Achievement and the European Achievement in World Cinema awards, going in 2022 to Margarethe von Trotta and Elia Suleiman respectively. From this year onwards, it will also focus on special anniversaries or specific theme programmes all relating to European film.

For this reason, the European Film Academy has set up a new European Film Heritage department, led by Pascal Edelmann. As a first step, the European Film Academy has been building up a pan-European film heritage network, where cinematheques, film archives and institutions can share information on anniversaries of filmmakers, films, institutions, or specific themes relevant to the cinema history in the various European countries and regions. From now onwards, the Academy aims to actively connect various initiatives and make them much more widely known among lovers of European cinema.

22 New Places Added to “Treasures of European Film Culture”

As one of the new department’s first activities and in light of this year’s 35th European Film Awards, the Academy adds another 22 places to the TREASURES OF EUROPEAN FILM CULTURE, increasing the total number to 35. The Treasures is the Academy’s list of places of a symbolic nature for European cinema, places of historical value that need to be maintained and protected not just now but also for generations to come.

Matthijs Wouter Knol, Director of the European Film Academy: “Instead of limiting our work to organising the European Film Awards, the European Film Academy will embrace European film history and the people who have made European film what it is today. This will result in new projects with exciting partners, but also become visible in all programming we will do throughout the year: in our work for young audiences, in our awards ceremonies, and in new services we will start offering for our members.”

 

The European Film Awards’ ceremony will include as always an “In Memoriam” sequence, a tribute to all those colleagues who have passed away since the previous edition. If there are any filmmakers to include in the context who haven’t been mentioned to EFA so far, please send their names their way.

A Season of Classic Films: ‘Apartado de Correos 1001’ (1950)

Restored by Filmoteca de Catalunya in 4K, the film Apartado de Correos 1001 (P.O. Box 1001) will be presented in a free open-air screening event at the Plaza de Salvador Seguí on Sunday 17 July 2022 at 22:00, as part of A Season of Classic Films. The film will also be free-to-view worldwide between 18 and 19 July.

This film is a great classic of Barcelona’s cinema noir. An echo of the Hollywood thrillers in the context of the Franco regime.

The film was shot on location: on the streets and at popular venues of 1950s Barcelona city centre, especially the neighbourhood where the cinema theatre of Filmoteca de Catalunya is located nowadays. How does this film from the fifties connect to the realities of the neighbourhood today? Filmoteca has conceived a physical and virtual itinerary that connects films linked to the area of Raval. The result is a collaborative map to understand how cinema produces reality and reality produces cinema. The map is available to pick up at the Filmoteca or in a digital version. Audiences can follow the itinerary in the way that suits them best (fragmented, complete, with or without company…) and are encouraged to share snapshots using the tag #FilmoRutaRaval. An organised walk will take place before the film screening, upon registration.

Apartado de Correos 1001 (P.O. Box 1001) | Spain, 1950, 90’, fiction

Director: Julio Salvador. Producer: Emisora Films. With: Tomás Blanco, Modesto Cid, Elena Espejo, Guillermo Marín, Conrado San Martín. Script: Julio Coll, Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi. Cinematography: Federico G. Larraya. Music: Ramón Ferrés. Physical characteristics of first release: 16mm, 90’, B&W, sound, Spanish. Film copy screened during A Season of Classic Films: New restoration. DCP 4K, 90’, Spanish. Subtitles available: English, French. Copyright: Video Mercury Films, SAU.

Barcelona, 1950. A man is murdered in the street in front of a police station. Two agents of the criminal brigade, a skilled veteran and an eager young one, are in charge of the investigation. We follow them on their journey to a thrilling climax in a local amusement park.

A Season of Classic Films: Celebrating film heritage across Europe

A Season of Classics Films is a series of free film screenings and parallel activities across Europe designed to attract younger audiences to our shared cinematic cultural heritage. The programme looks to raise awareness of the work of European film archives, connecting the public with cinema history and the significance of film preservation. Most of the films are premiere digital restorations and some screenings include live performances and educational interactive sessions. All films are available with English subtitles. Additionally, French or other subtitles are in some cases available. This is an initiative of the Association des Cinémathèques Européennes (ACE) with the support of the EU Creative Europe MEDIA programme.

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 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

 

 

Perspectives of Ukrainian Cinema

Вулкан|. Volcano, UA, GER 2018, Roman Bondarchuk, © Elemag Pictures

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From 12 to 30 June 2022, the Deutsche Kinemathek mounted a Ukrainian film series in three German cities, including introductions and discussions. The project has been curated by Victoria Leshchenko and Yuliia Kovalenko, whose initiative sloïk film atelier provides a space for underrepresented voices and fosters them internationally. Funded by the Federal Agency for Civic Education.

Information is available in three languages (English, Ukrainian, German) for future iterations of the programme at other institutions.

Russian war rhetoric seeks to negate the existence of Ukraine’s own history and culture. Ukrainian cinema, however, has a rich history and has recently been experiencing a veritable boom, testimony to a vivid, independent film culture. This series provides a map of that film culture negotiating self-perceptions, discourses, and places in the country.

Further information: https://www.deutsche-kinemathek.de/en/ukrainian-cinema

Inquiries: ejochum@deutsche-kinemathek.de