Watch: Incarcerated Youth and the Otisville Film Club, 1969-1972

Here’s the NYU Orphan Film Symposium session entitled “. . .  and its Discontents,” parts 1 and 3 of 3. Recorded June 17, 2022, at Concordia University.  37 minutes.   DeeDee Halleck (UC San Diego emerita) and Henning Engelke (Philipps U Marburg), Incarcerated Youth: The Otisville Film Club, 1969-1972, with screening of           • A Madman’s World (Kenneth Brown & Charles Smith, 1971)           • The Bloody Crime Crusher (John Vann & James Spann, 1971) Liz Miller (Concordia U) moderator  Click to enlarge or watch at vimeo.com/739282562 Video of the Q&A session is

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

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. 

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

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 Africa (as seen from abroad) part 2

Part 2 of 2 from the #Orphans2022 Counter-Archives Session 4 of 16 — Africa (as seen from abroad) — recorded June 16, 2022. In part 1, CK Ming & Bleakley McDowell of the National Museum of African American History and Culture present rushes from the unfinished documentary Pan Africa (1971) by Lebert Bethune.  42 min.  In part 2, Mark Williams (Dartmouth College) & Aboubakar Sanogo (Carleton University) present a variety of films from the Sherman Grinberg Film Library and the U.S. National Archives regarding the history of colonialism and “the idea of Africa.” These are part of the ongoing Media Ecology Project, which connects

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

Streaming Bloomsday

June 16 greetings. Day 2 of the Orphan Film Symposium.  The sessions begin at 9:30am, 11:30am, 2:15pm, 4:30pm, and 8:00pm. The complete program listings are here.  Instructions on how to live-stream the sessions.  Today is the only day in which none of the content will be restricted from the webcast.  However, a password is required. Here’s how to get it.   1. Register your name 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

Creative Process

In my creative work and in my teaching, I try to emphasize the importance of process: the necessity of taking time to sit with images and ideas, to let the mind wander, to fossick, as Ross Gibson has put it, thereby de-emphasizing – if only temporarily – the inexorable pull towards polished outcomes. In this brief post, I’d like to share some early process work of Long Xi Vlessing*, a senior undergrad student at Concordia who was hired by us to help develop a visual sensibility for Orphans 2022. While Long Xi’s work might not be especially evident in the

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

Stream

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

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