Archive Screening Days 2021

Accessing archival films from cinematic history has become both easier, more accessible and popular. Projects involving the digitisation of underused and often forgotten collections have allowed audiences to see ‘lost’ films or get an impression of life throughout history. However, these films are not always straightforward; they can raise contentious issues and elicit strong responses. Films from the colonial period, films made by the state promoting political opinions that have now been throroughly disregarded or narrative cinema that entrenches sexist or homophobic stereotypes can make reproducing films from the archive tricky. Concurrently there has been a critical mass of moving image practices that utilise, contextualise and question archival material, practices that centre and are in dialogue with the ethical bind that sometimes comes along with the archive. In this keynote, artist and researcher Onyeka Igwe will outline these approaches whilst offering a provocation for the programming of archival cinema.

How can we embrace the exciting possibilities of the archive, and attract new audiences, while also challenging the politics of the past? The archive is a rich and compelling resource but working with “old movies'' is inevitably fraught. The gaps and limits of moving image collections mean that films by filmmakers from historically marginalised backgrounds are often more difficult to find and expensive to screen. On the flipside, archive films often contain outdated perspectives, offensive language or jarring representations. This panel will explore the challenges of screening archive in a socially conscious, critically engaged way. Archive activists Invisible Women will be joined by expert speakers to discuss the political construction of the archive, re-framing screen heritage, encouraging debate and building revisionist cinema histories through exhibition.

The Borders Community Film Archive (BCFA) was launched earlier this year by Alchemy Film and Arts in Hawick. Its goal is for archive film made in and focusing on the Scottish Borders to be digitised, preserved and researched, with the intention of it being used for the common good of the community by schools, local groups and artists. Still in development and evolving as an archive, the BCFA has engaged with the local community in conventional and unconventional film exhibition spaces. This session will focus on the development process of creating a community film archive within a rural area, the way it can be used within film exhibition and its benefits in connecting with local communities and creating a sense of place.

This screening event includes three recently uncovered AIDS activist videos that were found during a period of research looking into the history of UK AIDS Activist Video, most of which appeared to have been lost or forgotten. The screening will include Cock Crazy or Scared Stiff, an educational safer sex tape from 1991/92 made by the photographer Sunil Gupta, This is Not an AIDS Advertisement, a love letter to queer desire and survival made by Isaac Julien in 1987 and Compromised Immunity, a video adaptation of a play by Gay Sweatshop about the relationship between a heterosexual nurse and a gay man living with AIDS, also made in 1987. For the event we will be joined by community video maker Phillip Timmins, who made Compromised Immunity. This will be a chance to talk about the role of filmmaking in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the UK and to reflect on the importance of rewatching this work in the current moment.

In 2001, a film was released from Tanzania titled Maangamizi: The Ancient One, directed by Martin Mhando, in collaboration with Ron Mulvihill, and written by Queenae Mulvihill. It is a film that explores the breadth of African consciousness and spiritual heritage through the story of three women: a doctor, her patient, and the ancestral spirit who unites them. However, despite being recognized by prestigious international awarding bodies — the film has remained virtually unseen upon the continent, a fate too common for profound pieces of African film history. Ajabu Ajabu - a collective of audio-visual practitioners operating in or from Tanzania - invites you to question why that is. Following a physical and digital exhibition of this neglected work of art, a hybrid panel dialogue will explore the return of Maangamizi and the localized distribution method undertaken by the Ajabu Ajabu team, emerging arguments for the restitution of African cinema, and the universal value of supporting creative reinterpretation of film work.

Archive programmes make a major impact when shared in local venues. But how can curators research programmes and develop them so that cinemas can bring them into their programmes? And what do venues want from external curators who approach them with archive programmes? In this interactive session, led by ICO’s Jemma Buckley (who has produced many local and national archive programmes) you’ll hear a successful case study of freelance curation and from a venue programmer on what they’re looking for from external partners. In addition, you’ll be able to ask your own questions on how to hone an archive programme and the practical and the curatorial approaches that work.