Three minutes by Bianca Stigter, Et j'aime à la fureur by André Bonzel and Incident by Bill Morrison won the main awards. Special Mention for Gli ultimi giorni dell’umanità by enrico ghezzi and alessandro gagliardo.

AAMOD provides three minutes of its images for free to all the authors of the films in competition. Crowded screenings  and  intense  participation in the first edition of UnArchive Found Footage Fest, the international festival dedicated to the creative reuse of images, which took place in Rome – at  the Cinema Intrastevere, the Academy of Spain, and Alcazar – from 3 to 8 May.

With about 400 accreditations, over 3000 viewers, 2400 visitors to the installations at  the Tempietto del Bramante, 300 participants in the thematic panels, the sold out in the Aula Magna of the CSC for the Radu Jude Masterclass and the great attendance to the live performances of the Alcazar, this  festival conceived and produced by the Audiovisual Archive of the Democratic   and  Labour  Movement in collaboration with Archivio Luce and with the support of the MiC – Direzione Generale Cinema e Audiovisvo and other public and private institutions, ends with an extremely positive balance.

Artistic directors Alina Marazzi and Marco Bertozzi highlighted how the community of authors, filmmakers, researchers, students, cinephiles who accompanied the six days of UnArchive was joined by with a wider audience of spectators, often surprised by the vast horizon of this cinema that usually remains under track.

The international jury, composed of Laurence McFalls, Ilaria Fraioli, Rä di Martino, awarded the UnArchive Prize to Three Minutes by Bianca Stigter “for having opened a new methodological horizon in the reuse of archival images. The author has  expanded   a short film to the end of its expressive and revealing potential and thanks to this method of investigation she  managed  to break the boundary between micro-history and macro-history, making them walk hand  in  hand".

The Award  for  Best  Feature  Film went  to Et j'aime à la fureur di André Bonzel, a film  that “transmits how  home  movies  - his own, those of various generations of his family and those of unknown origin - can tell an intimate personal story, capture the feelings of a generation, and make us reflect on the history of cinema from the Frère  Lumière to today”. The Best Short Film Award went to Bill Morrison for Incident: “His film is both an artistic and political statement. More than a denunciation of police violence, Morrison's film invites us to reflect on the perverse effects of the ubiquitous presence of surveillance cameras and explores the possibilities of reuse of the emerging  omnipresent and all-seeing video archive. The jury also awarded a special mention to Gli Ultimi giorni dell’umanità by Enrico Ghezzi and Alessandro Gagliardo, “a passionate and intelligent film that moves fluidly between the collective and personal imagination. The long experience in the resemantization of images gives the film a dense expressive stratification that makes it a unique and free work.

The second jury, led by Daniele Vicari and composed of students from various universities and specialized institutes, chose as best short film Irani Bag, by Maryam Tafakory with the following description: “How do we touch each other when we can't touch? The director of Irani Bag, takes us inside this issue through a picture of interpersonal relations in Iran. Between man and woman there is a bag, extension of the female body, weapon and shield in moments of conflict, sentimental connection in moments of intimacy that others cannot and must not see. Bags are rarely innocent in Iran. Such a specific theme takes on a universal meaning through the form of the video essay by investigating the very nature of cinema and its potential.”

Best Feature Film for the Student Jury was Firouzeh Khosrovani's Radiograph of a Family, “for the ability to recompose her family's album into an architecture in which the author's private life and the history of Iran mirrored each other. The director's gaze, through the poetic reuse of public and private photographic and audiovisual materials, overcomes dichotomies and offers the viewer an empathic access.

Finally, the UnArchive Prize was awarded by the students to 1970 by Tomasz Wolski "for the best reworking of archival material, through the original and creative use of sound, for the ability to make animation and repertoire dialogue by mutually increasing the power of each element, for having managed to give a face and a voice to people and facts that would have remained hidden. The many different  audiovisual sources mixed in various ways never  appear forced  together, and  build a plausible universe capable of dialoguing with our historical period.

At the end of the festival, the Audiovisual Archive of the Democratic and Labour Movement has decided to offer all the participants in the contest three minutes of their archival material ree of charge. The hope is that they may soon create new projects consolidating the happy relationship started with AAMOD.

Among the appreciations of the festival we mention the comments by the winners of the international competition.

I can't believe this is just the first year of UnArchive: a bold, mature and well-thought festival that has allowed us to collect and bring together all these guests along with journalists and members of the industry. (Bill Morrison)

 

It was a great source of inspiration for me to see all these films and above all to understand, through them, how much they show us a part of ourselves. – (Andre Bonzel)

 

A special award in a special and unique festival in a very special city full of history. I also receive this award on behalf of all the staff who helped produce this film (Bianca Stigter)

credit photo: Filippo Maria Gori PRESS KIT UnArchive Found Footage Fest It is conceived and produced by the Audiovisual Archive of the Democratic and Labour Movement with the support of the MiC – Direzione Generale Cinema e Audiovisivo in collaboration with Archivio Luce   under the sponsorship of Municipality of Rome - Department of Culture Spanish Academy in Rome Embassy of Canada Delegation of Quebec   in collaboration with Centre Pompidou, Paris IDFA - Amsterdam International Documentary Festival Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (CSC) Cineteca di Bologna Archivio Aperto, Home Movies - National Family Film Archive Pordenone DocFest, Cinemazero Re-framing Home Movies Dams, Department of Philosophy, Communication and Entertainment, University of Roma Tre Department of History, Cultural Heritage, Education and Society, University of Rome Tor Vergata BRERA ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS UNINT - Università degli Studi Internazionali di Roma Naba - New Academy of Fine Arts Scuola d’Arte Cinematografica Gian Maria Volontè Taxi drivers IUAV University of Venice DOC/IT   Art Direction Marco Bertozzi Alina Marazzi   Conception and organizational direction Luca Ricciardi   ORGANISING COMMITTEE Matteo Angelici Stefano Cirone Aurora Palandrani Organizational Coordination Cecilia Chianese   Selection Committee Veronica Flora Gabriele Ragonesi Giacomo Ravesi Chiara Rigione Roland Sejko   Curators André Habib Philippe - Alain Michaud Giacomo Ravesi   Programming, film research and relations with universities Veronica Flora   Programming and catalogue Gabriele Ragonesi   JURY DI MARTINO Ilaria Fraioli Laurence McFalls   Student Jury President Daniele Vicari   Hospitality Ivana Brozzi Welcome guests Carlotta Pavoni   Organizational coordination of the panel Ivana Brozzi Cristiano Migliorelli Alice Ortenzi Festival Image Gianluca Abbate Graphics and website Roberto del Balzo   Organizational collaboration Joana de Freitas Ginori   Editorial collaboration Riccardo De Stefano   Social media Serena Fioravanti   Technical processing Luigi Cuomo   Handling copies and technical department Simona De Bernardis Milena Fiore Alessandro Mazzucca   Film projections Massimiliano Rossi   TRANSLATIONS AND INTERPRETING Sara Triulzi   Subtitles Giulia Franciosi   Consultancy and archival collaboration Letizia Cortini Claudio Olivieri   Student Collaboration Irene Atzeni Francesco Maria Balestra Melany Catanaru Eugenia Inversi Flavia Martinelli Iolanda Nocera Ilaria Pacella Lorenzo Ragazzini Giulia Romani Nicole Salerno Carlo Tomljanovich Nicolas Veron Flavia Zazza   Official Website: unarchivefest.it