In the previous post about the teaser/trailer that Courtney Stephens created for Orphans 2020, I noted her source materials had their own interesting orphan stories. News about the schedule for the late May symposium — Orphans Online — will be posted here in a few days. Meanwhile, a consideration of the short fragments used in the teaser sets up the issues we will be examining in depth — and suggests how neglected films can provoke thinking about water, climate, and migration. The uncanny footage called If the Antarctic Ice Cap Should Melt? — outtakes (Fox Movietone News, 1929) is our emblematic
Category: Orphans Blog
An “Orphans International”
At the 2020 Orphan Film Symposium in Amsterdam, we’ll see films from the 1930s about Polish diaspora. Archivist Iga Harasimowicz (Polish National Film Archive) will talk about the collection and recent digitization work, joined by scholar Grazia Ingravalle (Brunel U London). Opening frames from Among Poles Living in France (1938) & Polish Settlement in Brazil (1936). Filmoteka Narodowa. Meanwhile, Prof. Ingravalle has just published her report on “Radicals,” the 2019 Orphan Film Symposium at the Austrian Film Museum in Vienna. Read it on the blog of Domitor, the International Society for the Study of Early Cinema. “As a transnational scholar,”
Thomas Elsaesser’s passing
Much more needs to be said about the passing of Thomas Elsaesser four days ago while in Beijing on a lecture tour. For the moment here is a link to listen to his keynote address to the 9th Orphan Film Symposium, The Future of Obsolescence. March 31, 2014, at EYE Film Institute Netherlands. He kindly gave permission to share it. 32 minutes. Thomas Elsaesser <www.thomas-elsaesser.com>, Professor Emeritus at the Department of Media and Culture of the University of Amsterdam, and Visiting Professor at Columbia University. He has authored, edited, and co-edited some twenty volumes on early cinema, film theory, German and
Around the World with H.T.C.
In response to my post of August 9, “Underground,” archivist-historian and Orphans veteran Paul Spehr commented about early advocacy for underground storage for film preservation. He began working in the Library of Congress Motion Picture Section in 1958, retiring as assistant chief in 1993. In the early 1960s the LoC was presented with a collection of 35mm negatives of films shot by Herford Cowling for Burton Holmes for showing at the 1933 Chicago World Fair. Cowling had been a very early consultant on standards for storage of motion picture film — going back to the 1920s
Because Amsterdam.
Next week watch this space for the official Call for Proposals for the 12th Orphan Film Symposium, May 23-27, 2020, which returns to Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. Orphans 2020 is also the 6th annual Eye International Conference. The co-branded symposium will be dedicated to Water, Climate, and Migration. (More on that in the next post.) The 2020 event will be in the long-running international biennial format, with four nights and three full days of screenings and presentations showcasing dozens of rediscovered orphan films from throughout the history of cinema. Mark your calendars to join archivists, scholars, curators, artists, preservationists, restorers,
Screening Orphans at MoMA, Jan. 21, 2019
Orphans at MoMA Monday, Jan. 21, 2019 (MLK Day) 6:30 pm Museum of Modern Art (11 West 5rd Street, NYC) To Save and Project: 16th International Festival of Film Preservation Beloved Community: Rarities of African American and LGBTQ Cinema—and More highlights from the Orphan Film Symposium on Love Piano accompaniment by Ben Model Three American Beauties (Edison, 1906) 35mm, 1’ MoMA’s restoration of an original hand-colored print; directed by Edwin S. Porter and Wallace McCutcheon. Museum of Modern Art Welcome by Josh Siegel (MoMA) Intro by Dan Streible (NYU Cinema Studies, Orphan Film Symposium) Sarah Keller (U Mass Boston) introduces filmmaker
MIAP Students present
The 11th Orphan Film Symposium took place this year from April 11 to 14, at the Museum of the Moving Image, in Queens, New York. Orphans 11 explored the theme of love with a series of films and talks by a wide range of presenters from around the world. Although every panel was interesting and educational, this post focuses on those related to the efforts of students now completing their NYU master’s degree in Moving Image Archiving and Preservation — the cohort of MIAP ’18. On the opening night Frannie Trempe and Becca Bender, both 2018 MIAP graduates, presented films they
Opening Night
Orphans 11 kicked off at Museum of the Moving Image, Wednesday evening, April 11, with a reception sponsored by Kodak and screenings of newly preserved and rediscovered films, including those presented by NYU students.
Galería goes live.
This delightful GIF became an emblem of the 2018 Orphan Film Symposium devoted to love. It then became an Orphans 11 T-shirt. A happy marriage resulted from the April 14th screening at the 11th Orphan Film Symposium — and the Museo del Cine has already debuted it online. Stephen Horne played musical accompaniment (accordion and piano) for the museum’s restoration of the silent film Galería Cinematográfica Infantil (1927), introduced by Carolina Cappa. The Museo has married that raw live recording, complete with audience laughter and applause, to the newly-restored 12-minute portrait of a hundred kids living in the town of General Pico,
Orphans 11 Intros
Thursday, April 12, 9:30am Introductions David Schwartz (Chief Curator, Museum of the Moving Image) Welcome Anna McCarthy (Chair, NYU Cinema Studies) Opening Remarks Dan Streible (Director, NYU Orphan Film Symposium ) Why Love? [archiveorg Orphans11_Intro width=640 height=480 frameborder=0 webkitallowfullscreen=true mozallowfullscreen=true] Video shot and edited by Antonia Carey & Nick Palazzo courtesy of Reel Heroes documentary.
Froats, Noll, and Art
John Froats, a film collector and photography enthusiast from upstate New York, started the Technophilia session by sharing with the audience his love for photographs. In 2015, Froats came across a 16mm film, which was still threaded inside a projector. He acquired the film and after careful inspection, he determined it was a loop of dark lines moving in space. The images did not seem to be painted by a human and it made him curious. Froats’ investigation continued and he was able to determine the pattern present in the film had been created by artist A. Michael Noll. Noll was
“Tito’s Cameraman”
New Documentary by Mila Turajlic to Reveal New Perspectives on Yugoslav Cinema Notes by Gregory Helmstetter Stevan Labudovic became known as “Tito’s cameraman” for travelling the world with the president of Yugoslavia, particularly as Tito was helping to establish the Non-Aligned Movement. The filmmaker is also regaled as a national hero in Algeria. As described in a previous blog post, the newsreel veteran is the subject of a forthcoming documentary (working title The Labudovic Reels) by Mila Turajlic, who was working with Labudovic until his passing in 2017. She has long been parsing the archive of Filmske Novosti (Yugoslav Newsreels)
Orphans 2012/2018 at MoMI
Looking Back at Orphans 8: Made to Persuade (2012) Notes by Frannie Trempe In anticipation of the 11th Orphan Film Symposium to be held at Museum of the Moving Image, this post looks back at the last time the biennial event took place at the venue in Queens, New York. Six years ago, the museum served as home for Orphans 8. As with all iterations of the symposium, Orphans 8 showcased a wide array of rediscovered and once-neglected archival treasures—presented both on celluloid and digital projection. Academics, archivists, students, filmmakers, and other moving image enthusiasts from around the world gathered for
Love Doctors and Medical Media
Notes by Winnie Schwaid-Lindner The Medical Movies on the Web project from the National Library of Medicine contains nearly 7,000 films spanning nearly any medical topic imaginable across decades of time. As the project describes itself, the works are “from public health, surgery, and nursing to cancer, tuberculosis, child development, tropical medicine, personal cleanliness, diet, drugs, alcohol, dental hygiene, mental health, and much more. Some are public education films, some are professional training films, and some were made for scientific or medical research.” Available on the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s YouTube page, they are often rare and unique works
Media Artists, Local Activists, and Outsider Archivists
Below is an early and longer draft of this essay, revised and published in the book Old and New Media after Katrina, edited by Diane Negra (Palgrave, 2010). Some text below did not appear n the book. Mistakes are made, but I wanted to put the longer text online. — DS Media Artists, Local Activists, and Outsider Archivists: The Case of Helen Hill Dan Streible The traumatic events wrought by Katrina floodwaters in 2005 exposed painful aspects of the social fabric of New Orleans and the nation generally. Class- and race-based inequities were laid bare. Failures of government at every
[Read on. . . . ] Media Artists, Local Activists, and Outsider Archivists