In this blog, Louise Conway reports on her time and takeaways from the FIAF Programming Winter School, a two-day course focused on programming film heritage.
The FIAF Programming Winter School (facilitated by the International Federation of Film Archives) takes place annually in Paris across two days. Now in its 10th edition, the programme welcomes programming professionals, FIAF archive organisations and other professionals from around the world to come together and explore the theme of programming film heritage.
As a freelancer who works in several fields (screen heritage facilitator, digital marketing and programme and project coordinator) across the screen heritage and exhibition sector, I was drawn to the idea of having some form of ‘schooling’ behind me to bring all these experiences together and into programming film heritage. I hoped that by stepping out of my comfort zone and into a room of like-minded people, I could gain the much-needed confidence to call myself a film programmer. Also, given that the course takes place in Paris, with all its rich film heritage, and is linked to the Cinémathèque Française Festival, there were other draws that helped me justify the trip.
It’s impossible to capture everything discussed along with all the nuances from the two days but I hope by sharing some of the main takeaways and resources, this round-up can be helpful to other programmers, and hopefully reassuring to those starting out.
A good place to start
Day 1 we were hosted by Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé. Our first session, Programming India’s Film Heritage, invited filmmaker and archivist Shivendra Singh Dungarpur to open up the topic. As founder of Film Heritage Foundation – a non-profit organisation dedicated to preserving and restoring India’s film heritage and the only non-governmental organisation working in film preservation in India – Shivendra’s work first had to lay the foundations for classic cinema to return to the big screen in India as, he explains, preservation and restoration did not exist in Indian (especially Hindu) culture.
Through a touring film festival (the first of its kind in the country), the organisation started by honouring the biggest icon of Indian cinema: Amitabh Bachchan. Over four days, showing 11 iconic films at 22 cinemas across 17 cities, Bachchan Back to the Beginning was a huge success. Shivendra showed us some clips of the audience at these screenings that captured the enthusiasm and experience, with audience members either singing and dancing along to the films or recording this special moment on their phones. Following the first programme’s success with Dilip Kumar – Hero of Heros (100) just two months later, Shivendra successfully built an audience with these ‘fun’ and ‘mainstream’ classics before presenting more obscure and independent titles. This culminated in the release of the restored Manthan (1976), a fictionalised version of the beginnings of the extraordinary dairy cooperative movement produced by 500,000 dairy farmers who each contributed Rs. 2 towards making the film. Shown in 51 cities and 101 cinemas across India, Manthan was met with an overwhelming response.
Eva Markovits (a programmer who has worked across many organisations, including Cinémathèque Française) and Jérôme Baron (a programmer of the 3 Continents Festival) then joined the conversation. Having worked on full-length retrospectives of filmmakers Ritwik Ghatak and Guru Dutt, they highlighted some of the challenges that they experienced programming Indian Film Heritage (the most profound differences being in exhibition practices and considerations for the 55 different languages spoken across India), but how ultimately, “things change for the good of film”. Restorations are made, communications between rights owners are improved to help get access easier, and audiences grow.
Searching for stories far and wide
After a coffee break amongst Pathe’s camera gallery, we returned to the screening room for the second session; Film Heritage in the Regions – From Collecting to Screening. Two speakers focusing on two very different ways of collecting and screening heritage but both have created amazing resources.
We are first introduced to Ofnibus, who emphasise that they are not a collection but a tool, whose work focuses on raising awareness among the general public and heritage associations about the filmic memory of local areas. Through travelling archive residencies, they ‘clean and digitise’ audiovisual material (in front of the public to see) but do not claim to ‘preserve’. They then work with a filmmaker to create a montage edit of the film discovered across that residence and screen it with a live musical accompaniment. Their workflow is inspiring, and the immediacy of the exhibition as part of the project demonstrates the importance of giving back with access. Their work can be viewed on the AMORCE platform.
Alternatively, Archives Numériques du Cinéma Algérien, an initiative aimed at restoring and making accessible Algerian cinematographic works that are often forgotten or hard to find, utilises platforms like YouTube and Facebook to share the materials.
As will be the recurring theme throughout the two days, both examples are ongoing endeavours that find meaning in collaboration. They both continue knowing there is always going to be renewed interest in histories, and that’s why programming and exhibiting screen heritage is so important.
An afternoon with ‘curator’ Ehsan Khoshbakht
A lunch break (with the most incredible dessert boards I have ever seen) preceded an afternoon with programmer Ehsan Khoshbakht (film curator, critic, filmmaker and co-director of Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna).
We begin with a screening of Celluloid Underground (Ehsan Khoshbakht, 2023). The film is a personal essay of two Iranian cinephiles, fighting to keep film culture alive in the face of oppression. Speaking about the film after the screening, Ehsan explains his requisite path to becoming a filmmaker; only turning to making films himself when there isn’t one already in existence to tell the story he wants to share.
A drink and 10 chouquettes later, the conversation continues. Although the theme of this winter school is programming film heritage, Eshan argues that the role of a programmer today is that of a curator. A curator who has to make choices from a wealth of options. He adds you must be a historian and a “clumsy detective” – clumsy as you must display all your findings.
It’s restoring to hear Ehsan talk about film; the extensive research that goes into the complete retrospectives he undertakes, always looking for a window to be opened onto a new landscape.
Ultimately it is a role all about exploration and discovery; the importance of being open, to allow your thoughts and ideas to be questioned. To utilise the community around you, to know you can’t be the expert on everything – but hopefully someone else is. It’s events like this that help you find those people and understand that you have to embrace them.
A place for the images of the past to inspire the present.
For day two, we are at the Cinémathèque Française, with our first session exploring Programming Militant/Political Film Heritage. The speakers covered a wide geographical ground, but with a shared core idea of exploring political, aesthetic, cultural and social transformation in the contemporary age through the lens of cinema. We heard insights from Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art (an impressive organisation who have been agile to the shift in new approaches to distributing film heritage), Ciné-Archives (audiovisual fund of the French Communist Party and the workers’ movement) and Audiovisual Archive of the Workers’ and Democratic Movement (AAMOD) who describe themselves as a tool for understanding the present through film and memory. Fundamentally, each organisation believes in cinema as a place for the images of the past to inspire, and gain light and perspectives in the present.
We also heard from Katia Rossini (co-founder of Cinema Nova in Brussels), who explained how Nova, initially intended as a three-year project in 1997, thrives today as an independent cinema with a programme dedicated to independent, auteur, and heritage films. A lot can be learnt from their manifesto – “Nova was created to explore and articulate the realities and alternatives of an increasingly commercialised and polarised society… It was born from a desire to develop tools and a space for research, reflection, connection, confrontation, creation and experimentation in the realm of images, particularly in cinema” Cinema Nova demonstrates that it’s not just the films, but the context they are presented in that makes them politically or socially engaged.
You won’t find the answers to a programmer’s biggest question in two hours
After another stand-out lunch (including the best cheesecake I’ve personally ever experienced), it’s time for the most anticipated session of the programme, by speakers and participants alike; How to programme classic cinema today, in the light of changing societal paradigms, in response to new audiences, avoiding the trap of self-censorship.
Samantha Leroy (Head of Programming of the Fondation Jérôme Seydoux—Pathé) and Chicca Bergonzi (Head of the Programming and Promotion Department at Cinémathèque Suisse) delivered the session. Both are members of the FIAF Programming and Access to Collections Commission (PACC), a specialised commission whose work deals with issues relating to archival access in the broadest sense.
Importantly, the issues of changing societal paradigms and self-censorship do not just apply to programming film heritage, but to all programming. The importance of taking external advice relevant to you and your audiences cannot be overstated, and the various tools and mechanisms to contextualise and mediate programming are clearly appreciated, but it’s clear there’s not a yes or no flowchart to follow.
The conversation quickly turns into a conversation around content warnings and whether they work as intended, and if they should be used in all contexts. Of course, there is no clear answer, and this is clearly a debated topic by all in the room.
Don’t start from square one
Although covering a lot of ground and a vast array of topics, there were clear motifs and lessons throughout the two days. Too often, when programming, you can feel like the first person to embark on this journey, especially if the resources are hard to find; however, the importance of collaboration and sharing resources cannot be overstated. Everyone on this journey wants to help and ensure as rich a film heritage is being shared as possible, but it’s also clear that there’s no escaping that programming is heavily reactionary to the current social and political climate. Film heritage presents the past as a means to enhance the present.
Throughout the two days, we were presented with many resources described as tools – I left feeling that it is our job (as programmers) to use these tools to create something.
Louise Conway is a freelance screen heritage facilitator.