Select portions of the 2022 Orphan Film Symposium on Counter-Archives can be watched live on the NYU Cinema Studies Vimeo site. 1. Register your name, affiliation, and email address using the NYU Orphan Film Symposium registration portal. Type in $0 in payment (or a pay-what-you-will donation). If you make no payment, you will not get an automatic email confirmation. However, we will email a PASSWORD to all registrants on Tuesday, June 14. And again June 15 and 16. Use this password to log-in to the Live Event (as Vimeo calls it). If you previously registered to attend, no need to
Author: Dan Streible
Esperanto
Soon after its first appearance in the 1890s, the medium of motion pictures was almost routinely referred to as a “universal language,” as least as long as they were silent movies in those first 30+ years. By the 1920s an international movement of self-described “amateur” filmmakers also adopted a utopian way of speaking about the power of noncommercial cinema. Fitting then that a twenty-first-century, international partnership among archivists and scholars to preserve films from an international amateur cinema network of the 1930s has restored a film bearing a title in Esperanto, the “international language” invented at roughly the same time
Sympose
It’s true. Less than two weeks to go before the 2022 NYU Orphan Film Symposium commences at Concordia University in Tiohtià:ke, a.k.a. Montreal. An opening screening with 9 short films on Wednesday, June 15, will be followed by three days of presentations and nights of more screenings and. Two panels each morning, two each afternoon; screenings nightly. It’s also true: registration remains open for this live-in-a-theater event. We will again have (as since 1999, save for the OMG of 2020) food and drink at hand, returning to the ritual of convivial, symposiastic conversation over meals — where learning continues and
Our 2022 Helen Hill Award goes to KELLY GALLAGHER
Each biennial Orphan Film Symposium confers the Helen Hill Award to an exceptional independent filmmaker whose work befits the late artist’s legacy, a celebration of creativity, animation, collaboration, and things made by hand. This year that’s Kelly Gallagher. On June 16, at Concordia University in Tiohtià:ke / Montreal, Orphans 2022 hosts Kelly Gallagher at the symposium, where she will screen her work for an international audience of archivists, artists, scholars, and curators. Her films certainly resonate with those of the award’s namesake. And given this year’s symposium theme — Counter-Archives — she is an apt match to the occasion. We
[Read on. . . . ] Our 2022 Helen Hill Award goes to KELLY GALLAGHER
![[Unarchiving] in Lviv, Ukraine](https://wp.nyu.edu/orphanfilm/files/2022/02/Flag_of_Ukraine.svg-640x392.png)
[Unarchiving] in Lviv, Ukraine
Update: Monday, Feb 28, 2022 at 6:25 PM Dan Streible <dan.streible@nyu.edu> wrote: Opportunistically, at 3am today, Facebook communications with colleagues in Lviv led to a live online classroom visit with Ukrainian scholar-archivists Bohdan Shumylovych and Oleksandr Makhanets. At 12:30pm (NYC time) they were in Zoom with the NYU students gathered in the Curating Moving Images class. It was dark in Ukraine, past curfew, but from their home basements in Lviv, they spoke about their work at the Urban Media Archive, which included a collaboration with a historian of Soviet-era amateur film, Maria Vinogradova. We all agreed
Orphans 2022 – Registration is Open
UPDATE. June 13, 2022. You can still register to attend the symposium in person. Day-rate is $50 to include food/drink. For locals attending only one session (sans food), no charge. To WATCH the live-stream online, register on the same site. In the first field, enter $0 payment (or a pay-what-you-will gift). The following day you will received an email with the password. Log in to the Vimeo “live event” page by pasting https://vimeo.com/event/2190360 in a new browser window during symposium hours. Schedule here. Some screenings (7 short films and the 55-minute documentary Women of Suriname) will not be live-streamed due
MLK Day and film preservation
Happy Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. (aka MLK Day in the USA). On Sunday, January 23, 2022 (1:30pm) the mostly-annual “Orphans at MoMA” screening returns to the Museum of Modern Art’s To Save and Project, International Festival of Film Preservation. More on that in the next post. For now we can note that among the 14 short films on display will be outtakes from a 1973 Turkish documentary about James Baldwin and three recently preserved very early silent films (1898, 1902) documenting African American performers and communities. The 2022 TSP festival opened with the Academy Film Archives restoration of
Update on symposium plans (Jan 13, 2022)
Gentle colleagues! We write to update you on our current discussion regarding the Orphan Film Symposium on Counter-Archives, to be held at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, June 15 to 18, 2022. (If you submitted a proposal, you will receive an email soon.) The Orphans 2022 organizing committee is watching developments regarding COVID as the pandemic determines so much about what we can do together in June. The current situation is difficult as we have such a big, beautiful international community. While COVID knows no borders, our governments do and traveling into and out of Canada could prove challenging. Indeed, at
Capturing Venus in Motion and Filming an Eclipse in the 19th Century
A program entitled “Orphans Films of Outer Space,” is part of the World of Knowledge: International Film Festival of Popular Science and Educational Films, which runs December 1-6, at the Lenfilm Cinema Center in St. Petersburg, Russia. On Sunday, December 5, 2021, I will introduce the films (via Zoom) to the viewers in the New Holland Pavilion. After the terrestrial projection of a 16mm print and four digital videos, filmmaker Jeanne Liotta and I will participate in a Q&A. The line-up: • Passage de Vénus (Jules Janssen and Francisco Antônio de Almeida, 1874) 5″ • The Transit of Venus (David
[Read on. . . . ] Capturing Venus in Motion and Filming an Eclipse in the 19th Century
Observing a World of Knowledge: Orphans in Space
Welcome to a new landing page for Orphans in Space: Forgotten Films from the Final Frontier. The short films and liner notes here are adapted from the DVD set of the same name, published off-line in 2012. This new access site coincides with the 15th World of Knowledge: International Film Festival of Popular Science and Educational Films, December 1-6, 2021, in St. Petersburg, Russia. On Sunday, December 5th, the festival includes a 90-minute program of orphan films (and one non-orphan), projected for the audience in the theater of the New Holland Pavilion. Live Zoom Q&A afterwards with filmmaker Jeanne Liotta
[Read on. . . . ] Observing a World of Knowledge: Orphans in Space
About Orphans 2022: Counter-Archives
ORPHANS 2022: COUNTER-ARCHIVES Concordia University, Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, Quebec, Canada (June 15-18, 2022) *We acknowledge that Concordia University is located on unceded Indigenous lands. The Kanien’kehá:ka Nation is recognized as the custodians of the lands and waters on which we will gather. Indigenous Directions Leadership Council, Concordia University (2017) New York University join forces with Concordia University to present the 13th edition of the Orphan Film Symposium in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, June 15-18, 2022. This biennial event brings together an international group of archivists, scholars, artists, curators, preservationists, librarians, collectors, distributors, documentarians, students, researchers, and others devoted to saving, studying, and screening all manner
Propuestas — Huérfanos 2022
Convocatoria de propuestas (Fecha límite: 1 de octubre de 2021) ORPHANS 2022: COUNTER-ARCHIVES / CONTRA-ARCHIVOS Concordia University (Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, Quebec, Canada) 15-18 de junio de 2022 Reconocemos que la Universidad de Concordia se encuentra en tierras indígenas expoliadas. Se reconoce a la nación Kanien’kehá:ka como custodiadora de las tierras y aguas en las que nos reuniremos. Tiohtià:ke/Montréal* se conoce históricamente como lugar de reunión para muchos pueblos indígenas. Hoy en día, es el hogar de una población diversa de pueblos originarios y de otras naciones. Respetamos las continuas conexiones con el pasado, el presente y el futuro en nuestras relaciones actuales
The Flatt and Scruggs Grand Ole Opry Show (1961)
Orphans in Space: Forgotten Films from the Final Frontier special edition for Roger That! 2021 The Flatt and Scruggs Grand Ole Opry Show (WSM-TV, 1961) 6 min., b&w, sound excerpts featuring Jake and Josh Source: Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum Note: the two short excerpts on the 2012 DVD are not streamable here, but related media are integrated into the updated notes below. Guitar-banjo duo Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs honed their musical chops as part of Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys for two years before they broke away in 1948 to form Flatt and Scruggs
[Read on. . . . ] The Flatt and Scruggs Grand Ole Opry Show (1961)
Chimp Recovery (1961)
Orphans in Space: Forgotten Films from the Final Frontier special edition for Roger That! 2021 Chimp Recovery (RCA Service Co., 1961) 6 min., color, silent Source: University of South Carolina Moving Image Research Collections Recorded February 1, 1961, Chimp Recovery, is the title assigned to one of three rolls of unedited footage showing the first chimpanzee launched into orbit as part of Project Mercury, the American man-in-space mission. One roll, dated January 23, 1961, documents a medical examination of “astrochimp” no. 65. Upon his safe return to Patrick Air Force Base in Florida, NASA gave him the name Ham. A
Carillon (Christmas) Parade (1968)
Orphans in Space: Forgotten Films from the Final Frontier special edition for Roger That! 2021 Carillon (Christmas) Parade (WIS and WNOK, 1968) 5 min., b/w and color, silent Source: University of South Carolina Moving Image Research Collections @USCMIRC The term newsfilm became increasingly common in the television age, referring less often to newsreels than to 16mm footage shot for TV networks and local stations. Film remained the medium for newsgathering through the 1970s. As videotape replaced celluloid many stations jettisoned their older newsfilm. Libraries and archives have often taken in large quantities of these reels. Now millions of feet of
Earth’s Moon (1840)
Orphans in Space: Forgotten Films from the Final Frontier special edition for Roger That! 2021 Daguerreotype of Earth’s moon (1840) John W. Draper The Orphans in Space DVD cover image comes from the Draper Family Collection, housed in the New York University Archives. The collection includes celestial photographs taken by John William Draper (1811-1882) and his son Henry Draper (1837-1882). Both were physicians, professors of chemistry, authors, and amateur but innovative photographers — true polymaths. The many photographic copies derive from a 3.25″ x 2.75″ (“sixth plate”) daguerreotype of the moon made (presumably) on March 26, 1840. A newly-appointed professor
Pavel Klushantsev films
Orphans in Space: Forgotten Films from the Final Frontier special edition for Roger That! 2021 To say a filmmaker impacted astronomy itself might sound like an exaggeration. But there is a heavenly body, an astroid, officially called 321046 Klushantsev (2008 QL33). The work of director, writer, cinematographer, and special effects maestro Pavel Vladimirovich Klushantsev (1910-1999) is on display here with the educational short Meteorites, made in 1947 at the Leningrad Popular Science Film Studio (aka Lennauchfilm). This is the first place to see this remarkable film on the web [save for a Russian-language torrent], but several of the director’s other
Men in Orbit (1979)
Orphans in Space: Forgotten Films from the Final Frontier special edition for Roger That! 2021 Men in Orbit (John Lurie, 1979) Super 8, 42 min., color, sound Source: NYU Fales Library & Special Collections The film is Streaming on Ubu. Eric Mitchell and Lurie play the astronauts. Camerawork by James Nares. In 1988, Lurie introduced his 1979 film on VH-1’s New Visions. Notes by J. Hoberman; interview with John Lurie by Andrea Callard John Lurie’s Men in Orbit is one of a number of short feature-length Super-8 sound films produced mainly in Lower Manhattan during the late ’70s, often
Teenage Cosmonauts (1979)
Orphans in Space: Forgotten Films from the Final Frontier special edition for Roger That! 2021 Teenage Cosmonauts (Igor Rodachenko, USSR, 1979) 10 of 17 min. Source: NYU Tamiment Library Produced by the Ukrainian Newsreel Documentary Film Institute, this classic Soviet propaganda film was distributed (with English narration) by the Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (Russian acronym VOKS). With its celebration of the space program and educational system, Teenage Cosmonauts was part of a larger effort to reconstruct Communism in the 1960s and 70s around the “new Soviet man.” The young cosmonauts represent the
Beyond the Moon (ca. 1961)
Orphans in Space: Forgotten Films from the Final Frontier special edition for Roger That! 2021 Beyond the Moon (R. E. Barnes, ca. 1961) 11 min., color, silent Narration by Megan Prelinger Soundtrack by Agatha Kasprzyk and Rafaël Leloup (2011) Source: Prelinger Archives After a stint in the U.S. Navy, Robert Earl Barnes (1931-2009) spent most of his career at television station WKEF in Dayton, Ohio, where he was a satellite coordinator. He was also a prolific amateur filmmaker, often working in science fiction and horror genres. For Beyond the Moon Barnes filmed miniatures, model kits, and tabletop sets, enacting the launch