Eyewitnesses of History

The role of amateur cinema as archival material in Italian media productions has only recently been discovered. Italy, as opposed to other European countries, lacked a local, regional and national policy for the collection and preservation of private audiovisual documents, which led, as a result, to...

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Main Author: Simoni, Paolo
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision 2015-12-01
Series:VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture
Online Access:https://www.viewjournal.eu/article/10.18146/2213-0969.2015.jethc092/
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author Simoni, Paolo
author_facet Simoni, Paolo
author_sort Simoni, Paolo
collection DOAJ
description The role of amateur cinema as archival material in Italian media productions has only recently been discovered. Italy, as opposed to other European countries, lacked a local, regional and national policy for the collection and preservation of private audiovisual documents, which led, as a result, to the inaccessibility of the sources. In 2002 the Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia (Italy’s Amateur Film Archive), founded in Bologna by the Home Movies Association, became the reference repository of home movies and amateur cinema, promoting the availability of a cultural heritage that had previously been neglected. Today, it preserves about 5,000 hours of footage, contributes to documentary film productions and acts as a cultural and production center. The impact factor of the Home Movies Archive on the Italian audiovisual scenario and the sustainable perspectives strengthen the awareness that amateur film offers new opportunities to discover and represent the past from a different perspective, the one of an eyewitness “from below”. The article overviews the European and Italian discovery of amateur cinema as historical source from the seventies, and some cases from the Italian panorama during the last fifteen years, which powerfully raised the attention on home movies and amateur archive material.
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spelling doaj.art-f810cd327d684324a83b4a72919e264d2022-12-21T21:19:02ZengNetherlands Institute for Sound and VisionVIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture2213-09692015-12-01484810.18146/2213-0969.2015.jethc092Eyewitnesses of HistorySimoni, PaoloThe role of amateur cinema as archival material in Italian media productions has only recently been discovered. Italy, as opposed to other European countries, lacked a local, regional and national policy for the collection and preservation of private audiovisual documents, which led, as a result, to the inaccessibility of the sources. In 2002 the Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia (Italy’s Amateur Film Archive), founded in Bologna by the Home Movies Association, became the reference repository of home movies and amateur cinema, promoting the availability of a cultural heritage that had previously been neglected. Today, it preserves about 5,000 hours of footage, contributes to documentary film productions and acts as a cultural and production center. The impact factor of the Home Movies Archive on the Italian audiovisual scenario and the sustainable perspectives strengthen the awareness that amateur film offers new opportunities to discover and represent the past from a different perspective, the one of an eyewitness “from below”. The article overviews the European and Italian discovery of amateur cinema as historical source from the seventies, and some cases from the Italian panorama during the last fifteen years, which powerfully raised the attention on home movies and amateur archive material.https://www.viewjournal.eu/article/10.18146/2213-0969.2015.jethc092/
spellingShingle Simoni, Paolo
Eyewitnesses of History
VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture
title Eyewitnesses of History
title_full Eyewitnesses of History
title_fullStr Eyewitnesses of History
title_full_unstemmed Eyewitnesses of History
title_short Eyewitnesses of History
title_sort eyewitnesses of history
url https://www.viewjournal.eu/article/10.18146/2213-0969.2015.jethc092/
work_keys_str_mv AT simonipaolo eyewitnessesofhistory