OPENING UP THE ARCHIVES TO YOUNG Filmmakers

A one-day online symposium, 11 September 2020

As cultural heritage organisations digitise their collections and increase public access, the creative reuse of moving image archive material remains problematic, beset by questions of copyright law, rights clearance and “fair dealing” exceptions. The Archives for Education project provides a new model for the creative reuse of archive film in higher education, giving student filmmakers from 66 institutions access to archive material from the BFI National Archive and BBC Archive for creative reuse on course-related projects for the first time.

This one-day symposium, organised by Kingston School of Art, reflects on the first full year of the scheme and explores the creative and learning opportunities creative reuse can offer to young filmmakers, including the launch of the new Make Film History project, funded by AHRC and the Irish Research Council, and supported by the BFI, BBC Archive Editorial, the Irish Film Institute and Northern Ireland Screen.

Programme

10:00 Welcome and Introduction

  • Dr Shane O’Sullivan (Kingston School of Art) and Dr Ciara Chambers (University College Cork)

10:15 Make Film History: Opening up the Archives to Young Filmmakers

  • Annabelle Shaw (BFI), Mark Macey (BBC Archive Editorial), Francis Jones (Northern Ireland Screen), Kasandra O’Connell (IFI Irish Film Archive). Moderated by Dr O’Sullivan and Dr Chambers.

10.45 Perspectives from Scottish and Dutch schemes

  • Dr Emily Munro (National Library of Scotland/Scotland on Screen)

  • Juliette Jansen (Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision)

11:00 Break

11:25 Panel One (20-minute presentations and questions)

  • A Case Study on Using Archive in a Primary School Setting - Sam Firth (University of the West of Scotland)

  • The Archive is Political - Ed Webb-Ingall (London College of Communication)

  • Reimagining a hunting safari in Sudan, 1929: film archives and collaborative film practice in the museum - Dr Sophie Everest (University of Manchester)

12:40 Lunch break

13:30 Documenting the Anti-Racism Movement in Seventies London

  • Filmmaker Rubika Shah, director/editor of White Riot (Best Documentary, BFI London Film Festival 2019), discusses her use of archive material to tell the story of the Rock against Racism movement in the 1970s. Followed by a panel discussion with Maggie Pinhorn and Tunde Ikoli (Tunde’s Film, East End Channel One), whose films are available through the scheme.

14:30 Copyright and Creative Reuse - Bartolomeo Meletti (Learning on Screen)

  • How does UK copyright law regulate the creative reuse of moving image archive materials and other works? What opportunities does copyright law offer young filmmakers and other creators to reuse existing ideas and works without having to clear rights? These include the idea-expression dichotomy, the public domain, and copyright exceptions.

15:00 Break

15:15 Panel Two

  • ‘Collagementary’ as a Creative and (IP) Learning Tool - Dr Claudy Op den Kamp (Bournemouth University)

  • Reusing ‘Akenfield’ for interdisciplinary secondary education: Exploring place and identity through Blythe’s book, Hall’s film and the East Anglian Film Archive - Dr John Gordon (University of East Anglia)

  • Piccoli Archivi di Quartiere: A Case Study of Creative Reuse of Family Footages in Higher Education - Dr Milo Adami (Independent researcher) and Dr Giulia Conti (University of Parma)

16:30 Closing comments

Registration for the symposium was free through Eventbrite.

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