The BFI has unveiled its ‘Future Plan For Film 2012-2017.’ This is the blueprint for public film strategy and investment over the next five years:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/future/BFI-Future-Plan.pdf

The British Council Film Collection is an archive of over 120 short documentary films made by the British Council during the 1940s designed to show the world how Britain lived, worked and played. Preserved by the BFI National Film Archive and digitised by means of a generous donation by Google, the films are now yours to view, to download and to play with for the first time.

The British Council is the UK’s cultural relations organisation working to create international opportunities for the people of the UK and other countries and building trust between them.  During the 1940s,  British Council was a very different organisation operating in a very different political and social climate. As part of its programme then it was concerned to promote an idea of ‘Britain and Britishness’ – and did so by becoming an enthusiastic commissioner of documentary films. Over 120 films were produced as ‘cultural propaganda’ to counteract anything the Nazis might throw out and to refute the idea that ours was a country stuck in the past. These films were designed to showcase Britain to the rest of the world, at a time when Britain itself was under attack.

Seen by millions of people in over 100 countries worldwide from the 1940′s to 1960′s, they present a historic snapshot of Britain, portraying its industry, its landscapes, and its people. The Collection is fantastically varied, covering anything from how a bicycle is made, to how the British spend their Saturdays. They provide us with a unique insight – not necessarily into how Britain actually was, but more into how Britain once wanted to be perceived by the rest of the world.

By the late 60s the Collection had largely fallen out of sight. Thankfully in the interim between then and now, the films have been carefully preserved by the BFI National Archive, waiting to have a second moment in the spotlight.  The foundation of that started in 2010, with an inspired idea from New Deal Of The Mind,  an organisation which works to gain recognition for the economic social and cultural value of Britain’s creative talent. Together with ‘Thinktank’, Counterpoint, they’d come to the Council looking for a project that a small group of young unemployed creatives might take on.  The project they alighted on was to delve into the archive treasure chest that was this Collection. Turning themselves in to creative film archive consultancy, Time/Image, with generous financial support from Google, embarked on some brilliant detective work in order to find, catalogue and carefully digitise the Collection in order to make it available and accessible to a generation of new viewers.

Today, we are beginning to make the whole Collection available right here, not simply as a fully catalogued resource available to watch once again, but to download too – and you are all actively encouraged to play with the films! We’ll be adding more films, more background information, and more fascinating material from the paper archive here, throughout 2012.

For updates as we add to the Collection, be sure to sign up for our newsletter by scrollng to the foot of our home page here.

Alongside basic credits and production information, you can find some fascinating pieces of trivia, photos, and screen grabs, as well as the original synopses that the films were distributed with. Some of the films give you the option to go even deeper, to learn a little more about how the films was made.  And, perhaps most importantly, you can not only watch the films online but download them too.

Digitisation isn’t a replacement to archiving, but a means to provide anyone around the world with unlimited access to films that need great attention and care. With digital technologies and ever-wider internet access and faster speeds, it means that we can both protect the original film stock whilst providing the public with 24-hour worldwide unlimited access.

We don’t want this collection to be just a static directory of old films; we want people to use it as a creative resource, to seek inspiration within its varied content and unusual history. We want you to download these films, to reinterpret them, and to share your interpretations with the world.

Enjoy the British Council Film Collection!

The database will be formally launched at the Lighting the Cave symposium on Friday 11 May 2012 at Central St Martins College of Art & Design, Granary Square, King’s Cross, London N1 C4AA.  The launch will take place in LVMH Lecture Theatre E003 during the lunch break at 1pm.  If you wish to attend the symposium it is free, but places are limited, so please email a.sagoo@csm.arts.ac.uk to confirm.  If you just wish to attend the launch, please report to the reception.

If you’re unable to attend the launch, the team would welcome any feedback on the database.  It has been designed to add content as and when resourcing permits, so it will be an expanding resource.

Proposals are invited from early career scholars in Film Studies for academic monographs to be evaluated by a distinguished editorial board. The winner of the competition will receive a contract to publish the volume with Peter Lang.

Proposals should be submitted to oxford@peterlang.com by 15 June 2012 and include an abstract (including chapter synopses), CV and a sample chapter (5,000 to 10,000 words in length) in separate Microsoft Word documents. Only proposals in English will be considered. Proposals under review elsewhere should not be submitted.

The winner will be offered a contract for a non-subsidized paperback book to be published within six months of receipt of the complete and approved manuscript. Planned manuscripts should be 60,000 to 100,000 words in length. Authors will be expected to copy-edit the manuscript in accordance with the style guidelines provided.

Applicants should be early career scholars with connections to the UK or Ireland:

• They should have been awarded a PhD between 2007 and 2012 or expect to be awarded a PhD in 2013.
• They should be resident in the UK or Ireland, or hold British or Irish citizenship or resident status, or have completed some or all of their postgraduate education at a British or Irish university.

Decisions will be made by 15 October 2012 and the winner will be notified shortly thereafter.

For more information, please contact Peter Lang Ltd, 52 St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3LU | E-mail: oxford@peterlang.com | Tel: 01865 514160.

http://www.zauberklang.ch/colorsys.php

In its current form the database is a nucleus for a much more advanced project which will be elaborated in the forthcoming months. It is based on the research of Prof. Dr. Barbara Flueckiger, who aims to develop a collaborative platform which allows experts and researchers to collaborate on a global scale. The data derives from her studies of several hundred original papers and secondary sources at Harvard University in the fall term of 2011.In order to further develop her work, she has set up a crowd-funding campaign to invite you to support the further development of the project, either by sharing it or by contributing financially. It is my goal to collect at least $10,000 in the upcoming 90 days. There are several levels, starting at $25 for buying the rights for one image and extending to $5,000 for possible co-chairs of this project: http://www.indiegogo.com/colorprocesses

For further details, contact Prof. Dr. Barbara Flueckiger: Institute of Cinema Studies University of Zurich

May 21-23, Los Angeles

Organized by the PrestoCentre Foundation in collaboration with the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation Institute and Digital Repository.

The Screening the Future conference serves the global community of stakeholders who keep audiovisual content alive. This annual international conference brings together more than 250 leading archivists, production companies, filmmakers, TV producers, CTOs, scientists, vendors, strategists, funders and policy makers, developing solutions to the most urgent questions facing audiovisual repositories. With Play, Pause and Press Forward as the theme of this year’s conference, we explore: the current status of audiovisual archives; the main challenges that archives and producers face in terms of IT, institutional position, and changes in use and market; and their future readiness.

Conference themes include: For the record: Should we talk about data or media?; Meeting the demand: How can we match users’ expectations with institutional capabilities?; and “I am big, it’s the pictures that got small!”: What we can learn from each other. Screening the Future also includes a session of Master Classes where you’ll spend focused time with experts and other delegates on a specific key topic. Choose from one of the five classes which include: Archiving in production; Managing the cost of archiving; Infrastructure, repositories and services; Archiving future data; and Trusting the future archive.

For more information about the conference visit http://2012.screeningthefuture.com

Deadline for proposals: May 6, 2012

Send abstracts of max. 500 words, bibliography and biographical statement to:

flashbacks2012@gmail.com

Confirmed speakers: Prof. Daniel Dayan, Prof. Ute Holl, Prof. Andrew Hoskins

Media are time machines. They remember and forget. Media screen and record parts of memory and history as well as they maintain collective memories and contribute to historical narratives by (re)shaping events, happenings or other incidents. Media also tend to remind their own past by re-using archive-images in the present, for example. In this sense, media seem to be nostalgic of the past as well as of their own one. Nostalgia as a concept, feeling or expression is not new. The notion has been introduced by a doctor in Switzerland (17th century) to describe the phenomenon of homesickness. Related to nostalgia is also the idea of melancholia or yearning. These days, there seems to be a BOOM of nostalgia: The Artist (revival of the silent film) or television series like Mad Men – exploring aesthetics and social life of the sixties – are examples of what we could name nostalgic media (makers).

Not a IAMHIST member? Benefits of membership

CHANNEL 4 AND BRITISH FILM CULTURE CONFERENCE

What: This 30th anniversary conference invites media historians, policy-makers and key personnel from the British film and television industries to celebrate Channel 4′s contribution to British film culture, and to debate the future role of public service broadcasters in the film industry. This event is run as part of the four year project ‘Channel 4 and British Film Culture’ (visitwww.c4film.co.uk)

Who: Special guest speakers will introduce a programme of film screenings
Where: London, BFI Southbank, NFT3
When: 1-3 November 2012
Call for Papers  OPEN NOW

We invite proposals for papers on any aspect of Channel 4′s 30-year contribution to British film culture.  Topics may include (though are not limited to):

Film on Four and Film 4 productions
Short films
Animation

Avant-garde and Independent Film
Film Co-ops and the Workshop Movement
Women and film on Channel 4
Black and Asian film
S4C film
Regional film

Film magazine programmes
Film buying, scheduling and film seasons
Film festivals

Film on Four sales, marketing and distribution
Film Four International
Film 4 and Europe/Co-productions
Film 4 subscription service
Film 4 freeview channel

Film policy at Channel 4
Channel 4′s fostering of new talent: writers, directors, producers.
Channel 4′s relationships with studios: independents and majors.

Deadline: 1 May 2012
Abstracts (max 300wds) to:
Ieuan.Franklin@port.ac.uk