Author: Dan Streible

Watch: Super Super 8s (Orphans Online 5b of 10)

Because it was too perfect of a match, this presentation about the films of Tatjana Ivančić was programmed adjacent to the Helen Hill Award session with Martha Colburn and Jaap Pieters. All the keywords were there for Orphans interests:  Super 8 film, experimental, amateur, woman, cine club, new preservation, restoration (and Austrian Film Museum — host of a special Orphans 2019, Radicals). The title Super Super 8s alludes to filmmaker/scholar/curator Melinda Stone, an important influence on the “orphan film movement” (a term I heard for the first time when she spoke at Orphans 2 in 2001). Her Super Super 8

[Read on. . . . ] Watch: Super Super 8s (Orphans Online 5b of 10)

Watch: The Helen Hill Awards (Orphans Online 5a of 10)

Wanna cut to the chase? Watch the replay edition of the Helen Hill Awards portion of Orphans Online here.  52 minutes.  For each Orphan Film Symposium, beginning in 2008, NYU Cinema Studies and the University of South Carolina Film and Media Studies Program celebrate independent filmmakers with the Helen Hill Awards.   The  announcement of Martha Colburn and Jaap Pieters receiving the 2020 award is here. Thanks to Eye Filmmuseum hosting (what was to have been) an Amsterdam symposium, experimental film curator Simona Monizza worked with both artists to select works to showcase, including two films restored by Eye. The live edition

[Read on. . . . ] Watch: The Helen Hill Awards (Orphans Online 5a of 10)

Listening to Ja’Tovia Gary and The Giverny Document

May 28, 2020: On the final evening of the Orphan Film Symposium, after a screening of her new film The Giverny Document (single channel) artist Ja’Tovia Gary joined in conversation with Terri Francis (Director of the Black Film Center/Archive, Indiana University).  Watch the recording of their discussion (with the filmmaker in Dallas, the scholar in Bloomington) below.  The Giverny Document remains in its festival run and is now also a three-screen museum installation, The Giverny Suite. These are also part of flesh that needs to be loved, a sculptural installation whose exhibition at Paula Cooper Gallery in New York was cut

[Read on. . . . ] Listening to Ja’Tovia Gary and The Giverny Document

Watch: Darkening Days (Orphans Online 4b of 10)

Streaming now:  the second hour of the morning session on “Climate Wednesday,” May 27, 2020, Orphans Online. 71 min. Two films from the early 1960s — one British, one American — about the “darkening days” when air pollution was identified as a cause of major health problems.  11:00 am Darkening Days Sarah Eilers (US National Library of Medicine) US Public Health Service Films on Air Pollution, 1960-1969   Oliver Gaycken (University of Maryland) “The Darkening Day” National Library of Medicine Exhibition of 1970             • Sources of Air Pollution (1962) 5 min.           

[Read on. . . . ] Watch: Darkening Days (Orphans Online 4b of 10)

Watch: Early German Images of the Anthropocene (Orphans Online 4a of 10)

Streaming now: an HD recording of the first of two Wednesday morning sessions, May 27, 2020, Orphans Online. 66 min. This includes both the archival films and the slide presentations and discussion by the four originators of the session: Nicholas Baer, Katerina Korola, Katharina Loew, and Philipp Stiasny, who zoomed in from New York, Chicago, Munich, and Berlin, respectively.  Click to enlarge, or visit vimeo.com/430242631. Naturschutz: Tieraufnahmen, Germany 1915–1920, dir.: Hermann Hähnle. 4 films from Haus des Dokumentarfilms, Stuttgart. 9 min. Die Aran-Inseln (fragment), Germany 1928, dir.: Heinrich Hauser, Print: Bundesarchiv. 15 min.  Here is their original abstract, submitted in 2019.  The

[Read on. . . . ] Watch: Early German Images of the Anthropocene (Orphans Online 4a of 10)

Watch: Water Tuesday Screenings (Orphans Online 3 of 10)

Streaming now: an HD recording of the opening night’s live stream. 141 min. May 26, 2020:  Keeping with the Orphan Film Symposium custom, evening sessions were devoted to longer films and shorter talks. For this Water Tuesday set, five films played in full, each with significant introduction and discussion. Four are replayed here. The spoken introduction to Samba Félix Ndiaye’s Aqua (Senegal, 1989) is also included, as the preservation of that film is now underway.  Click to play full screen, or go to vimeo.com/429498250 For permission to stream these films we owe gratitude to:  The Smithsonian National Museum of African American

[Read on. . . . ] Watch: Water Tuesday Screenings (Orphans Online 3 of 10)

Watch: Environmental Impact (Orphans Online 2 of 10)

Streaming now: an HD recording of the second session. 87 min.  In choosing to devote the symposium to Water, Climate, and Migration, we sought presentations addressing the current moment of climate crisis as well as historical media that allow us to think about how the planet got to this point. And about how archives and media makers face the need to be greener and cleaner. This panel does these things.  Click to enlarge or go to vimeo.com/429875386. Linda Tadic, “The Environmental Impact of Digital Archives.” In 2017, she founded Digital Bedrock, a provider of digital preservation services, of which she

[Read on. . . . ] Watch: Environmental Impact (Orphans Online 2 of 10)

Watch: The Silent World (Orphans Online 1 of 10)

Streaming now: an HD recording of the opening livestream. 97 min. May 26: the first day of the Orphan Film Symposium on Water, Climate, and Migration was devoted to the water theme. Here’s Session 1. Editor Walter Forsberg removed some extraneous bits and abbreviated the screening of Wildlife Conservation Society’s Department of Tropical Research underwater footage of 1927-34.  The symposium called this session The Silent World, featuring films from cinema’s “silent” era of the 1910s and 20s, but with original music, both traditional and experimental. The title also references Jacques Cousteau’s landmark documentary Le Monde du silence (1956, directed with Louis

[Read on. . . . ] Watch: The Silent World (Orphans Online 1 of 10)

Title Tiles

As a preview to the reposting of video recordings of the May 26-29 Orphans Online, we have these title cards (or tiles) designed by Valeria Kriletich (in Buenos Aires).  Each pair will appear before the video segments being prepared by Walter Forsberg (in Mexico City). The new streaming video will free from the few technical glitches we experienced during the live event. Some films screened in May will necessarily be absent from the new HD files, to honor the filmmakers’ and archives’ agreements. The new video segments will indicate what has been removed, where to find it elsewhere, and often

[Read on. . . . ] Title Tiles

It takes your breath away

“It takes your breath away” Angela Saward, Research Development Specialist, Wellcome Collection, London. The title of this presentation is taken from a film made in 1964 which won a Silver Award at the British Medical Association’s Film Festival. A ten-minute introduction precedes the screening of It Takes Your Breath Away (13 min.). The 1956 Clean Air Act was implemented in the UK after the “Great Smog” of 1952, which had a devastating impact on the health of many vulnerable people: this catastrophic environmental event led to at least 4,000 people dying immediately with 8,000 in the weeks and months afterwards. In

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Jack Weidemann’s Lost Legend of Calinda

In this May 17 post, Bradley E. Reeves (Appalachian Media Archives) shared his new 23-minute video compilation, made to stand-in for the live presentation he would have given at the Orphans / Eye International Conference in Amsterdam. The Tennessee Valley Authority: Built for and Owned by The People  (2020) will remain up for future viewings and research.  Finding he didn’t have time enough to include a recent archival cache in the first mix, Reeves cut another stand-alone video. For post-symposium posting. It began with a connection to the symposium’s water theme, but morphed into a biography of someone who left behind media

[Read on. . . . ] Jack Weidemann’s Lost Legend of Calinda

More Ways of Water via IULMIA

The Ways of Water (Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corp., 1971) 16mm, color, sound, 13 min. Cinematographer: Les Blank Provided with permission from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. (c)1971 by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Thanks to Rachael Stoeltje, Director of Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive, the symposium was able to screen a high-quality digital copy of this exceptional work, made from a 16mm print from IU’s large collection of distribution prints of educational films. Film Digitization Specialist Carmel Curtis did the scanning. Further, due to Stoeltje’s work with  Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., the rights holder granted permission to keep The Ways of Water streaming as part of

[Read on. . . . ] More Ways of Water via IULMIA

Archives Day and Liberty

It’s International Archives Day. June 9, 1948: The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization convened a meeting of archivists who created the International Council on Archives. In 2007, ICA declared the 9th of June as International Archives Day, an occasion to raise awareness of the importance of these memory institutions. Although sometimes perceived as dead-letter offices or institutions where the Ark of the Covenant gets forgotten, archives are, advocates contend, essential for a healthy society. An ICA declaration of 2010 ends with this: “Open access to archives enriches our knowledge of human society, promotes democracy, protects citizens’ rights and

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Polish Settlements in Brazilian Wilderness (1933)

“Hello, Orphanistas,” Grazia Ingravalle (Brunel U London) greets us as this video made for Orphans Online 2020 begins. It reminded me of her generous report on the 2019 NYU Orphan Film Symposium at the Austrian Film Museum in Vienna, which she entitled “An Orphans International.” There too she invoked the forced bilingual portmaneau that has hung around the event since 2001. I never intended orphanista to last beyond the symposium that featured films of the Mexican Revolution, but after Emily Cohen published “The Orphanista Manifesto” in American Anthropologist (Dec. 2004) it took on a life and a capitalization of its own.  Indeed the

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Bill Morrison’s Sunken Films

Created especially for the final session of Orphans Online, Bill Morrison‘s compilation Sunken Films (June 2020) appears here for the first time, updated after the May 29 panel “Never Lost But Found in the Ocean: On Biographies of Film Copies.”  Film historian Maria Vinogradova conceived of the topic in collaboration with Morrison, whose newest work is inspired by an unlikely recovery of celluloid from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.  A recording of the original session will be posted here soon. Here’s the description of the May 29 session: Occasionally lost films are found. There are also found films never known

[Read on. . . . ] Bill Morrison’s Sunken Films

The Case of the Fishermen (1947)

Presenter Charles Musser shares his slide talk that preceded the Orphans Online screening of The Case of the Fishermen on May 26, 2020.  The film is embedded below and can be viewed directly at vimeo.com/413840816. Digital access to this newly preserved film comes from the National Museum of African American History and Culture and its Pearl Bowser Collection. Thanks to NMAAHC archivist Blake McDowell.  Charles Musser  Rediscovering Another Lost Union Films Production:  The Case of the Fishermen (1947)  What might be called the Carl Marzani-Paul Robeson-Union Films Project has been underway for more than 20 years.  It began when I stumbled across a

[Read on. . . . ] The Case of the Fishermen (1947)

Paper Recycling in Schools, a Super 8 film from Brescia, Italy

Another thing we missed by not being able to assemble in Amsterdam for the Eye International Conference / Orphan Film Symposium in May 2020 was a presentation about film restoration by Alice Plutino and Alessandro Rizzi (University of Milan).  It was also a good match for the symposium because the rare Super 8 film they restored is also about early environmental education.  Below is the abstract and description submitted for the Orphan Film Symposium — which the program committee unanimously agreed should be part of the symposium.  Their video demonstrating the color restoration is also below, and at vimeo.com/415570346.    The

[Read on. . . . ] Paper Recycling in Schools, a Super 8 film from Brescia, Italy

More from CCTV: 1980 Puppet Show

In Chinese with English subtitles.  Title: Puppet Show 1980 – Asian CineVision CCTV broadcast, 26:19 An additional part of Klavier Wong’s presentation on the history and preservation of Chinatown Cable Television of New York, she offers this broadcast of a puppet show.  This video presents glove puppet shows performed by Quanzhou puppet troupe from Fujian Province, China. The troupe visited New York City in September 1980. They held performances at American Museum of Natural History and at Yung Wing School in Chinatown. Footages are originated from the audiovisual archive of CCTV which is part of “Asian CineVision records” (TAM 416)

[Read on. . . . ] More from CCTV: 1980 Puppet Show

Letter from Olomouc, CZ: “truly the best festival”

As response to “Orphans Online” comes in, we must thank Tereza for this encouraging note. Used with permission.  From: Tereza Bernátková <t…email> Date: Sat, May 30, 2020 at 12:08 PM Subject: Orphans 2020 To: <orphanfilm@nyu.edu> Dear Orphan Film Symposium organizers,  Thank you. Orphans 2020 was truly the best festival I’ve ever been to. Not only were all sessions so inspirational, the organization was so smooth, it also felt so friendly and close as the ideas about avant-garde cinema, archive films, and equality and justice were widely shared. I’m so grateful I could attend the festival for my first time. Bill

[Read on. . . . ] Letter from Olomouc, CZ: “truly the best festival”

The Ways of Water (1971) a distinctive EB film shot by Les Blank

The Ways of Water (Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corp., 1971) 16mm, color, sound, 13 min. Cinematographer: Les Blank Provided with permission from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. (c)1971 by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Thanks to Rachael Stoeltje, Director of Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive, the symposium was able to screen a high-quality digital copy of this exceptional work, made from a 16mm print from IU’s large collection of distribution prints of educational films. Film Digitization Specialist Carmel Curtis did the scanning. Further, due to Stoeltje’s work with  Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., the rights holder granted permission to keep The Ways of Water streaming as part of

[Read on. . . . ] The Ways of Water (1971) a distinctive EB film shot by Les Blank