The 50th FIAF Congress will be held from April 26 to May 2 in Bologna (Italy), organized by Cineteca del Comune di Bologna with the collaboration of C.S.C. - Cineteca Nazionale (Roma) and the participation of Cineteca Italiana (Milano), Museo Nazionale del Cinema (Torino) and Cineteca del Friuli (Gemona). It will as always include the annual General Assembly of the FIAF Members and Associates followed by some workshops on April 29, a Symposium on pre-cinema on April 30 illustrated by an exhibition, and a Symposium on Legal Deposit on May 1st, which are open to the general public. The Symposium on legal deposit will include a Survey of the situation in all FIAF countries and the analysis of the European Community's draft convention on the protection of the European film heritage, as well as a key-presentation by Michael Henry, copyright adviser to both the BFI/NFTVA and the Council of Europe.
Any archive wishing to participate directly in the Symposium should apply to Clyde Jeavons at the NFTVA in London.
On Monday May 2d, all delegates will depart by train for a visit of Cineteca Nazionale and of Cinecittà in Rome where the Congress will officially be closed.
The FIAF Executive Committee will meet on April 23 - 25.
The Congress will take place at the same time as Il Cinema Ritrovato, the Festival promoted and organized by the Cineteca di Bologna in the frame of the Mostra Internazionale del Cinema Libero. Aside from the Congress, this will give the delegates a chance to attend a series of interesting events, divided in 3 sections :
Recovered and Restored
A series showing some recent restoration works carried out by FIAF archives, important and interesting from the methodological, technical or philological points of view.
Lost in the dark. Part two
For the last five years, the Italian archives have been intensely searching lost films in other FIAF archives' collections. The program is the result of this work, updating the important retrospective held in Bologna in 1991 with many discoveries. Rather than an overall "Italian film history", it will provide a chance to focus on some unknown periods and authors such as : the unknown documentaries produced in Italy from 1896 to 1930; the important genre of the diva-films produced between 1913 and 1928, with newly restored copies; some important authors and directors: Carmine Gallone, Eugenio Perego, Mario Almirante, etc., and above all the discovery of some films by Lucio D'Ambra, a film-maker sometimes compared to Ernst Lubitsch; also a wide section of films produced in a period practically unknown of our film history, the years 1924-1931 when the major Italian authors were forced to work abroad. A key-moment to understand why and how the Italian films of the early thirties were so different from the ones produced in the twenties, to understand the roots of the most famous Italian cinema. And finally, another forgotten history: the shorts and documentaries production of the 50's, when many later famous directors started experimenting and directing.
Precinema
One year before the Centennial, an exhibition - organized in collaboration with the Museo del Cinema di Torino - will try to focus on the continuity existing between the language of precinema techniques and of early cinema. The exhibition will not merely show the artefacts but will produce a journey into their functioning, into the show, the machines at work...
For all practical information, please contact the FIAF Secretariat or Cineteca del Comune di Bologna, via Galliera 8, I - 40121 Bologna. (Fax: 051/261680).