SOCIAL IMPACT OF AN AMATORIAL FILM ARCHIVE

When nosarchives was born…I'm Manuel Kleidman, co-founder of Nosarchives, an archive of home movie and director of the collections. The social impact on the community of the amatorial movie: this is what I will tell you about today; but first it begins with an advice: to remember that you surely have at home some family movies and not to forget them, they have an impact on society and bring a lot of activities: cerebral, emotional, social and commercial . “L’oubli c’est l’exil et la memoire c’est la liberté”, to forget is the exile and memory is liberty.

The one who said that knew what was the value of time. To find back this value, the serenity of what remain of the past, this is what we like. Don’t we visit first the old city when we arrive somewhere, in a foreign country? To see old stones and ancient customs? It is bringing us some peace and a warm feeling of a déjà-vu, a feeling of security. And it’s for that human peculiarity that we are here today.

Zizi & Defaye – Leloir & Opera de PékinNosarchives was born three years ago. We had, my wife and I, done a documentary "The Alhambra of Jane", about the music hall of my grandmother in Paris, both vanished today. To build this movie we were obliged to look for films, and the best we found were in my family, in the movies of my father from the 50’s and 60’s. They were all in colour 8 mm, something you couldn't find in the official archive of this time. Zizi Jeammaire and her truc en plume (the tail of feathers), produced by my grandmother, was pinkish and was suddenly gorgeous; the opera of Pekin was alive again with the pictures of the photographer Leloir and the movies of my father. When we made the account of our expenses, we found out how much we saved by using the movies of my father! And how much we really spend buying officials archives footage.

We understood how much we would gain by selling our images. Why not giving this opportunity to the others and give them back their author-rights? To transform this material in a commercial material and transform the common people in creators and authors? And that’s what we did. With the help of the lawyer Hubert Best who wrote for us the contract and who believes in our work, we actually convinced many families to join us. For sure we are all crossing our fingers to wait for buyers but it is far better than to forget these reels in an old house or throwing them in a garbage or in a flee market.

The aim of these reels and their goalsThese reels where done to be shown and there is no reason not to show them finally. We are giving back to the world what we had at home, image of the world as it was. Marvellous trips , old customs, vanished villages, but overall: smiles, happiness, innocence. It’s an idealisation of your own life, of what you want to leave to your family, an image of the best of you. Well arranged. I will call them "The long chain of golden summers" You will discover how much women have a different way than men to look at things and how the protagonists are, most of the time, behaving absolutely not naturally under the eye of this camera.

And in fact, the observer is part of the observation and influence enormously the protagonist. So you will tell where is the real life in these movies? If in every second I choose to shoot or not, freely with my own liberty what is the best for me! Anyway these reels have a language identical all over the world, an intimate, sentimental and emotional scripture. A poetry.

Social ImpactWe arrived in a countryside with no audio-visual production or any related business company, any experience on cinema, to scanning, cleaning, restoration, etc...

When we built the archive in this small city we bet at it, and we began to form youth. We couldn’t imagine that in three years we’ll become company general managers, teenagers teachers, tutors for young employed, organisers of night for elders, school of cinema for kids, festival founders…and detectives, how?

You know how much work could bring these 24 image a second little three minutes dusty reel ? Here is a reel. We archive it, number and describe it, then we clean and digitise it in high definition, a work already taught by our old trainee to the younger.

We are sending registered letters to the address decrypted (an important legal point), and the trainees call the heirs and trying to convince them to find back memories about these forgotten moments, precisely. And finally to sign a contract. We have actually agreements with three important Italian universities like IED, Louis, La Sapienza and with high schools. They give us, as in the last year, 35 girls and boys, who learned how to make investigation, how to describe film footage on the archive database with the help of the authors or their heir, and to build a very short documentary about the author. Then the students spread this information on Facebook and Twitter. What a victory! But as for the trainees, our archive attracts many professional of cinema and archiving, asking for a participation or a job. This demand a budget.

Trainees

Stage and employement

We are also trying to tell the people how these films are made: what is the material, the cameras, how we shot a movie reel, how to cut and to edit; it is a real discovery for them how much this material has been forgotten in our days; for example we did some stage with little children of 3-4 years old. After the lesson, they bring at home a 20 cm piece of celluloid full of minuscle images, and keep it as a jewel!

We taught to the students of Bracciano highschool how to develop marketing of film collection, spread on the social network, to release press review about the most important authors in our archive, to manage the organization of the Festival and looking for sponsors.

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When we organise one with a competition last september, “Il Gusto Della Memoria", was a first. Means, to build movies directly from our web site with our motor of research! It has been a real success! Images of my mother and father, my friends and myself have been used in a science fiction, or a documentary.

During this festival we reunify families, we bring back people to see each other 60 years later. For example an old fiction, "Simenon", has been remasterised and the actors crossed the sea to meet in Bracciano and look at it for the second time in their life. What an emotion, for Socrate, this amateur movie-maker, in front of our president of the jury Gianni Amelio, Leone d’Oro in Venezia!

FESTIVAL 2014The future edition of our festival, in 2014 is already advertised. We propose three international competitions: one for children from 7 to 14 years old , one for the young from 15 to 18 and one for the adults. The subject for the young (little and big) will be biography and autobiography: the children will discover images which are not at all their own memory and will have to build a biography. For the adult, the subjects will be about the evolution of human conscious: I was once a carnivore...and much more, or Stranger...and much more. What was in fact sranger to us? How did our conscious have evoluted? We have to look at our past behaving to bring our conscious higher than ever. How human being with compassion and understanding will respect more and more our earth and all the living species?

Festival 2014

Bracciano PlaysNow our local social events.

We already found from different families almost three thousands movies only in the little town we are settled. The archive own actually eighteen thousand movies. We organize meetings with the elders, old protagonist or witnesses, we show them the movies, taking notes of their appreciation and enjoying with them these flashes of memory, recognising old friends, old vanished houses and so on...

This definitely help the descriptions!

We organised with them the festival "Bracciano Plays", in which they bring their old games (from the pre-electronic era!), and teach the children in the street how to play. A projection of their old family movies illustrates the lessons. We are also trying to tell the people how these films are made: what is the material, the cameras, how we shot a movie reel, how to cut and to edit; it is a real discovery for them how much this material has been forgotten in our days; for example we did some stage with little children of 3-4 years old. After the lesson, they bring at home a 20 cm piece of celluloid full of minuscle images, and keep it as a jewel!

Memories Restitution Meetings

Money!Money is a direct kind of social impact. In the competition festival for example, considering that we are coproducing the movies of the winners, the income for them and for the authors of the material used is available again. What an opportunity for these amateur creators who believed in us and for the families who brought us their home-movies! The social impact is also psychological and very positive. People trusting us have definitely liberate themselves from their private past, which is not anymore intimate but shared now. From mouth to ear they advertise our archive with their memory, which comes from a close neighbourhood or from the other part of the world.

By revealing again these images, they make contact between them, something they were not doing anymore. And by the interest we demonstrate toward them, and the potential income we bring them, speaking to each other, they find out how much their images became suddenly cinematographic, and how their grand father or ancestor became suddenly a useful movie maker. Their family name is on an official fund and it gets out suddenly from anonymity. It’s a deep source of pride and very healthy. And it convinces us to go on.

OURSDETECTIVES

• VALENTINA & MARIA

• 17 years old

The social impact in a world perspective Last but not least. The investigation will remain the problem. What about the orphan reel, for example? I mean a reel without author. When we find orphans reels we are also in trouble legally. We have to obey to what is called the good faith (we have done all what we could to find the original author), and the investigation brings us sometimes nowhere. I hope to develop with the Fiat Ifta world members, a project: to build a right investigation portal to find back authors and heirs and to give them back their forgotten past and their rights.

The protagonists What is important is to give to Nosarchives a capacity of an ethnographic tool without frontiers and turned to the forgotten protagonists. We give back the image belonging to whom it belongs! Means: the pigmei, the bedouin, the merchants of the suk, the chief of the tribe, the child of the jungle, the horse rider of the toundra , a crowd in Venice or a group of children in vacation etc...etc.. It’s also for them that we build Nosarchives! No matter how old they are, where they are today, in the same tiny and lost place, or in a big foreign city, They have this privilege with Nosarchives to see again, or show to others, the place were they born. A real image of their roots. And the question is: once only objects and now main subjects, how will we reach them (or their descendant) and how they will reach us? To reach this aim we should open Nosarchives, freely, to the world.

THE CREATION OF THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA

I want you to realize that the moment you bring to light this movie again and sign a contract with author, heirs or protagonist: its for life. I mean you are part of, and building here, the foundation of the Home-Movie Universal Encyclopaedia of the 20th century.

The moment you build the right investigation portal (par. 6) you can dream parallely about the creation of the 20th century universal encyclopaedia of home movies. For, this portal is its essential and legal guardian. So my last word will be for people who believes that its time for it.

That’s will be a real social impact on the communities in a world perspective, a personal and intimate universal encyclopaedia, a beautiful secret revealed, a marvellous encyclopaedia.

To be continued….