The NYU Orphan Film Symposium convenes April 10-13, 2024, at Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, NYC. Our theme: Work & Play. How have orphan works documented and envisioned these subjects throughout the history of moving images? Once again archivists, scholars, artists, curators, and others will convene to screen and discuss a plethora of preserved audiovisual works. Registration is open to all. Click here to register. The symposium begins Wednesday evening, April 10, with an opening reception at 7pm and 8pm screening. April 11, 12, and 13, sessions all day, with an 8pm screening each night. (That’s 26
Category: Orphans Blog
Naomi Feil’s passing
Word from Ken Feil today that his mother, the great filmmaker (among other things) Naomi Feil, has passed away at age 91. Such a life and career! (This lede mirrors that of “Ed Feil’s Passing,” published here three years ago, upon the passing of Naomi’s partner and collaborator of 58 years.) The obituary her family published documents the richness of her long life. In 2016, I was privileged to meet the Feils at the Museum of Modern Art when they attended a festival screening of their masterpiece The Inner World of Aphasia, a 1968 medical education film. I’d first seen it
Sergei Prokofiev’s Holiday Movie Screening
Text by guest blogger Maria Vinogradova; artwork by Asja Dolgikh. Exactly 93 years ago, on December 29th, 1930, composer Sergei Prokofie wrote in his diary: We are having a holiday party: both children and grown-ups. Among the latter is the old lady Meindorff whom I drove in and back by car. The old lady is wonderful, fresh – found something to talk about with everyone. I ran the cinematograph with our summer movies, which had greater success than the ones we rented. Exactly four descriptions of those “summer movies” survive in Prokofiev’s diary (or its published part, which is known
[Read on. . . . ] Sergei Prokofiev’s Holiday Movie Screening
Patty Zimmermann
Hollywood films are the home movies of global capital. — Patricia Zimmermann. An apt epigraph, which in fact it was for Paul Cullum’s report on the second Orphan Film Symposium, “Orphanistas!” L.A. Weekly, April 18, 2004. To give an example of Patty Zimmermann’s work, her passions, political advocacy, and indeed her personal presence, below is a video excerpt of her talk at last year’s Orphan Film Symposium. Since the unexpected passing of Patty Zimmermann on August 18th at age 68, we’ve seen an outpouring of lengthy testimonials from the many people whose lives she touched, whose
Return to Astoria: 2024
Announcing . . . a return to NYC and our every-six-years home at MoMI. The 14th Orphan Film Symposium will be in New York, April 10-13, 2024. The NYU Martin Scorsese Department of Cinema Studies and Tisch School of the Arts again join with Museum of the Moving Image to host this international gathering. Mark your calendar and join us. <movingimage.us> + <tisch.nyu.edu/cinema-studies> = <orphan.film> In 2012 and 2018 the symposium convened at MoMI in Astoria, Queens, for memorable events: Orphans 8, Made to Persuade, and Orphans 11, Love. Scholars, archivists, artists, curators, preservationists, and other advocates for studying, saving,
Fred Ott Sneezes, Twice
Happy January 7th! Two thousand twenty-three begins with a film premiere of sorts for Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze, January 7th, 1894. The day is an anniversary for the milestone of cinema commonly known as Fred Ott’s Sneeze. In 1894, Thomas Edison instructed W. K. L. Dickson to make a demonstration recording of their new Kinetoscope and to send a photographic illustration to Harper’s Weekly, which had requested a sneeze. This marks the web debut of the Library of Congress restoration, which begins with the familiar footage (first reanimated in 1953) and ends with the additional frames published in Harper’s, March 24,
Watch Esdras Baptista films from LUPA
Rafael de Luna Freire (Universidade Federal Fluminense) Cinematographer Esdras Baptista’s Film Collection (1940s-80s): Rediscovering a Brazilian Communist Filmmaker; music performed live by Landscape of Hate (Vivek Venkatesh & Jessie Beier) Professor de Luna presents research and new film digitization work conducted with Laura Batitucci at LUPA, Laboratório Universitário de Preservação Audiovisual, which he founded at his university in the city of Niterói. Recorded June 17, 2022, NYU Orphan Film Symposium on Counter-Archives, at Concordia University. The presentation concludes with a premiere screening of previously unseen documentary footage, accompanied by live guitar music and an audio mix that sampled recent political
Watch Reanimating Histories 3 (Kelly Gallagher)
Recorded June 16, 2022, in the de Sève Cinema, Concordia University, Tiohtià:ke / Montreal. Part 3 of 3. The culmination of the Reanimating Histories session was the tradition of “Helen Hill night.” Kelly Gallagher receives the OFS Helen Hill Award and Kodak grant. Symposium co-founders Susan Courtney (U of South Carolina) and Dan Streible (NYU) introduce. After Kelly’s remarks (“Another world is possible”), watch seven of her works, ranging from an early student film to two of the most recent inspiring productions. The line-up: A Herstory of Women Filmmakers (2009), More Dangerous Than a Thousand Rioters: The Revolutionary Life of Lucy
[Read on. . . . ] Watch Reanimating Histories 3 (Kelly Gallagher)
Watch Reanimating Histories 2 (Phil Hoffman)
Since 2008, each NYU symposium recognizes an independent filmmaker with its Helen Hill Award, given to media artists who share the spirit of the late experimental animator’s work and values. On this occasion, awardee Kelly Gallagher agreed we should show a Helen Hill film. We selected one of her films made during her years in Canada, and in particular one she made at the now-legendary “Film Farm” in Ontario. When we discovered the founder would be in attendance, we of course asked him to speak — which he graciously did. This was the only celluloid print screened at the symposium.
[Read on. . . . ] Watch Reanimating Histories 2 (Phil Hoffman)
Watch Reanimating Histories 1 (Bill Morrison)
Recorded June 16, 2022. Here’s the opening segment of the Orphans 2022 program “Reanimating Histories,” which was built around filmmaker Kelly Gallagher receiving the Orphan Film Symposium’s biennial Helen Hill Award. First, Bill Morrison was to introduce his recent film Buried News. Pairing his work with Helen Hill makes sense. She screened her first home movie footage rescued from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina at the 2006 Orphan Film Symposium, in her hometown of Columbia, South Carolina. He was there to debut Who By Water. She presented him with her VHS copy of his film Decasia with the muck of
[Read on. . . . ] Watch Reanimating Histories 1 (Bill Morrison)
Watch Malcolm X press conference (1962)
Session 5 of 16 at Orphans 2022: Counter-Archives was entitled “Black is . . . ?” Here’s a video recording of the second of three presentations on this panel. Recorded at the de Sève Cinema, Concordia University, June 16, 2022. The full symposium program listing is here. Mark Quigley (UCLA Film and Television Archive) Social Justice Activism and Surveillance Television Screening: [Malcolm X press conference on deadly police raid in Los Angeles] (1962) 10 min. excerpt Presentation contains sensitives images. Footage includes racial epithets. Click to enlarge, or stream at vimeo.com/732572655. On April 27, 1962, a confrontation initiated by
Watch “Photographed By Willie P. Jackson”
From Session 5 of 16 — Black is …? — at Orphans 2022: Counter-Archives, Concordia University, Tiohtià:ke / Montréal. The first three presentations on this panel. The symposium program listing is here. Dr. Teddy Reeves & Ina D. Archer (Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture) “Photographed By Willie P. Jackson”: Portraiture and Experimental Cinematography in Willie P. Jackson’s Church of God films (ca. late 1940s) Abstract: William “Willie” P. Jackson (1910-1980) is an almost entirely unknown filmmaker. Until 2021, his work was not part of a single memory institution or archive.
Watch Vulnerable Media Lab & Sara Gómez
Opening remarks (3′) on Counter-Archives by Monika Kin Gagnon (Concordia U) were followed by the first of two presentations in Session 2 of 16 — Black Atlantic/Black Pacific: Archives, Restitution, Activism. This opening morning presentation followed the opening night screening of Iré a Santiago (Sara Gómez, ICAIC, Cuba, 1964). Susan Lord, Jenn Norton, Brandon Hocura, Michelle O’Halloran, & Rebecca Gordon (Queen’s University) Apparitions: Vulnerable Media Lab Projects and the Case of Sara Gómez Click to enlarge, or watch at vimeo.com/732210177 Q&A for all panelists followed the session’s presentation on the Atrato and Colombian Pacific Archive: watch here. Abstract: The
Watch Magnetic Bojayá
María Fernanda Carrillo Sánchez (U Autónoma de la Ciudad de México) & Isabel Restrepo Jaramillo (U Nacional de Colombia, Medellín) Magnetic Bojayá: Audiovisual Memories of the Atrato and Colombian Pacific Archive (1994-2008) Juana Suárez (NYU) moderator / translator From Session 2 of 16 — Black Atlantic/Black Pacific: Archives, Restitution, Activism — at Orphans 2022: Counter-Archives, Concordia University, Tiohtià:ke / Montréal. A moving presentation by documentarian-archivist-scholars working with archives of Afrodescendent and Indigenous communities in western Colombia. Bojayá magnetica refers to the hundreds of mini-DV and VHS magnetic tapes in the collection. Key fact: The town of Bellavista in Bojayá, located
Watch Orphans 2022
NYU Cinema Studies and Concordia University presented the thirteenth biennial Orphan Film Symposium, Counter-Archives, in Tiohtià:ke / Montréal, Canada, June 15-18, 2022. Orphans 2022 resumed the symposium’s format as a three-day, four-night in-theater event, with an international group of archivists, scholars, and artists presenting and talking about previously-neglected films. More than 80 presenters took the podium in a total of 16 sessions. Orphans 2022 also met the new era’s expectation of “blended content,” live-streaming each session from the de Sève Cinema via the NYU Cinema Studies site. We thank Concordia’s Jean-Francois Martin and Alexandre Page for fluidly projecting and live-mixing
Design counterarchives
The design team for Orphans 2022: Valeria Kriletich (@valeriakriletich Buenos Aires), Long Xi Vlessing (@longxiv Vancouver/Tiohtià:ke), and Matt Soar (@mattsoar Tiohtià:ke). See valeriakriletich.myportfolio.com for more about her graphic design, including samples of her work for the past four Orphan Film Symposiums (posters, T-shirts, printed programs, social media, website and motion graphics). Valeria selected the typeface for Orphans 2022: Misto, a quirky display font created in 2019 by Ukrainian graphic designer Kateryna Korolevtseva (@katerintseva Киев, Украина), Misto (“city” in Ukrainian) is a reverse-contrast typeface she says is “inspired by Slavutych — the youngest city of Ukraine, which was born after the Chornobyl
Women film eclipses, 1898-1901
Note: This is a draft in progress, with additions, corrections, and other edits appearing as they become available. What I thought would be an addendum to an earlier post, “Capturing Venus in Motion and Filming an Eclipse in the 19th Century,” expanded into territory I did not expect: four women were involved with the operation of motion-picture cameras during solar eclipses in 1898, 1900, and 1901. Gertrude Bacon, Ada Ardley Maskelyne, Annie Russell Maunder, and a certain “Mrs. Ireland.” Each used one or more machines from the London magician-inventor/s John Nevil Maskelyne (1863–1924) and/or his father John Nevil Maskelyne (1839-1917).
Counter-Archives 2022
July 3, 2022: Here’s the actual “run of show” for the June 15-18 symposium. The program evolved as the event unfolded, with unforeseen films and even speakers added. Each session began with one of the series of trailers, first generated by Long Xi Vlessing, with logo by Valeria Kriletich. https://ia601406.us.archive.org/5/items/trailer_Orphans2022/OFS_Trailer_1_sound_720.mp4 Below also includes some links to streaming video (predating the symposium) and relevant web pages. Recordings made of and at the symposium will be added in new posts. It all happened in the de Sève Cinema, Concordia University, Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. Wednesday, June 15 8pm Opening screening: Making Counter-Archives Haidee Wasson (Concordia
Jojolo / Jo-jaw-gay
An initial post-symposium note: This Orphan Film Symposium on Counter-Archives was rewarding; one first-time attendee said “transformative.” Others offered similar assessments, in more joyful words than I write here. With 80 presenters and a sizable group of organizers and star projectionists many mercis are due. A hallmark of Orphan Film Symposiums is the accidental “rhyme,” a serendipity connecting two or more moments in two or more of the works screened. One of this year’s rhymes is minor, a literal wordplay: Jojolo and Jo-jaw-gay. Another is significant: that an opening night film featured a Montréal protagonist who we saw again on
Tiohtià:ke
Here spoken by our Concordia University host Monika Kin Gagnon, chair of the Department of Communication Studies. She will offer opening remarks on Counter-Archives on opening morning, Thursday, June 16. And here Tiohtià:ke and Kanien’kehá:ka, courtesy of Wahéhshon Shiann Whitebean. The pronunciation guide is from Concordia’s rich and instructive Indigenous Directions web resource and its Territorial Acknowledgement page. As the symposium theme of counter-archives, the work of the Archive/Counter-Archive project, and the selection of films and presentations all affirm, everyone involved supports the principles of territorial (lands and waters) acknowledgement. We hope the four days of symposium activities reveal these values and demonstrate the actions