Challenges of Film Preservation and the Aesthetics of Recycled Film

As part of the the Analogue Film in the Digital Age Symposium, there will be a round table discussion about the state and challenges of film archiving in Croatia, the preservation of experimental and non-professional film, as well as the historical importance, aesthetic achievements and different uses of recycled film (i.e. found footage). The discussion will feature the Japanese-German artist Sylvia Schedelbauer, the American archivist and independent film artist Ross Lipman, Lucija Zore, a film archivist for the Croatian State Archives and  film critic and editor of the archive program at DKSG in Belgrade, Ivan Velisavljević. The discussion will be moderated by the film critic and symposium curator Ejla Kovačević.

Sylvia Schedelbauer lives and works in Berlin. She was born and raised in Tokyo of a Japanese mother and a German father. Selected screenings: Berlinale, Toronto International Film Festival, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, London Film Festival, New York Film Festival and the Robert Flaherty International Film Seminar. Awards include the VG Bildkunst Award, the German Film Critics’ Award and the Gus Van Sant Award for Best Experimental Film. Schedelbauer was a 2019/2020 arts fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

Ivan Velisavljević graduated in dramaturgy from the University of Arts Belgrade. He obtained an MA in comparative literature from the University of Zagreb. He is a PhD candidate at FDU Belgrade and works as a chief media archive curator of the Alternative Film Archive at the Student City Cultural Center in Belgrade. His essays on film have been published in a number of books, journals, and magazines. He has co-written The Best Serbian Films of the 21st Century (2019) and Kritički vodič kroz srpski film (2018) with Đ. Bajić and Z. Janković. He has edited the books Studying Mamoulian (2021), Novi kadrovi: skrajnute vrednosti srpskog filma (with D. Ognjanović, 2008) and a special issue of the Gradac journal, dedicated to unusual bodies/disabilities in culture and society (2012).

Lucija Zore (Dubrovnik 1980) graduated in Film from the University of Bologna in 2005, after which she interned at the Cinemateca Portuguesa (ANIM) and attended the Film Restoration Summer School / FIAF Summer School. She is a senior film archivist at the Croatian Film Archives (Croatian Cinematheque), a department of the Croatian State Archives. She has attended a number of specialised workshops and conferences on the topic of film heritage and has edited and written a series of articles on film preservation for the Encyclopedic Film Dictionary. She was also a co-editor of The FIAF Moving Image Cataloguing Manual (2017). Lucija is currently writing her doctoral dissertation, "The Concept of Amateur Film Based on the Films by Maksimilijan Paspa".

Ejla Kovačević is an independent film critic and researcher in the field of experimental and art film. She is an associate and curator of the 25 FPS Festival, a member of the Kinoskop Festival selection committee and a film curator for the /'fu:bar/ Glitch Art Festival. She is a member of the Klubvizija film lab, where she organises numerous workshops, screenings, and lectures on analog film practice. Her texts have been published in the academic film journal Hrvatski filmski ljetopis, radio show Filmoskop, as well as Vizkultura and Kulturpunkt web portals. She holds an MA in French Language from the Sorbonne Nouvelle University – Paris 3 and is currently completing her graduate studies in comparative literature in Zagreb. She is a member of the Croatian Society of Film Critics.