Challenges of film preservation and the charm of recycled films at the heart of this year’s symposium
Festival will feature the second edition of the Analogue Film in the Digital Age Symposium. There will be talk on the state and challenges of film preservation and the potential of recycled film (i.e. found footage).
The symposium includes two curated film programs and a round table featuring experts on analogue film: the Japanese-German artist Sylvia Schedelbauer, the American film restorer 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.
“With the arrival of digital media, celluloid was declared ‘obsolete’ in the public discourse, prompting numerous artists working with film tape to shift their attention to the dominant, economically driven discourse of Hollywood studios. They have incorporated old films and various recordings from personal and public archives into their work in order to critically analyse and draw attention to the unbreakable bond between the history of film art, industry, and technology” elaborates the program curator Ejla Kovačević.
The first film program brings a retrospective of films by the artist Sylvia Schedelbauer, whose work is characterised by a distinctive essayistic approach to filmmaking, wherein she combines personal, historical, and political narratives through poetic manipulation of found and archival material. The program is scheduled for Thursday, 28 September at 14:00. In the second program, the curator Jurij Meden has prepared for us a selection of rarely-seen found footage films created outside of the Western epicentres of experimental filmmaking. The selection is screening on Friday, 29 September at 14:00.
The symposium will conclude with the round table discussion on The Challenges of Film Preservation and the Aesthetics of Recycled Film. Analogue film experts will discuss the issues of film archiving, the availability of archival material in Croatia and abroad, the preservation of experimental and non-professional film, as well as the historical significance, aesthetic achievements, and different uses of the recycled film. The round table will take place on Saturday, 30 September at 12:00.
Photo: Labor of Love, S. Schedelbauer