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 Pékin

Nosarchives 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 goals

These 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.

.

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.

OURS

DETECTIVES

• 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….