Call for proposals: Northeast Historic Film Summer Symposium

Northeast Historic Film Summer Symposium
July 20-22, 2017
Bucksport, Maine, USA

Proposals Due: March 15, 2017
Regional Moving Image Collections and Archives in the 21st Century

Twenty-first century regional moving image archives discover and collect increasingly diverse audiovisual artifacts that represent increasingly diverse media-making populations. This year we seek to bring together archivists, collectors, scholars, and practitioners involved with regional AV archives—and regional AV collections within a general archives—to consider best practices in expanding the reach and content of the regional moving image archive. Both “real world” and aspirational presentations are welcome.

Calling upon the regional moving image archive community internationally, we hope to create an atmosphere for sharing case studies, developing collaborative initiatives, discussing what works and what doesn’t, and screening representative material from the world’s regional film and AV archives.

Some topics to consider, and all others are welcome:

  • Ways of affirming regional moving image identity
  • How to raise money for general day-to-day activities
  • How to put together a publication project highlighting your archive’s material
  • How to set up a research scholarship? Benefits/drawbacks
  • How to identify sources of income
  • Cataloging nontheatrical/home movies for maximum benefit
  • Stock footage sales, advantages and adventures
  • Dealing with vendors on a small scale
  • Scholarship that foregrounds regional material: methodologies and outcomes
  • Regional material as capsules of broader cultural trends
  • Teaching with regional moving image materials

Please send a 250-500 word abstract outlining your presentation idea and a brief cv via e-mail to: symposium@oldfilm.org. The Summer Symposium Program Committee is: Jennifer Jenkins, University of Arizona; Audrey Amidon, National Archives and Records Administration; Liz Czach, University of Alberta; Dino Everett, University of Southern California; Heidi Holmstrom, National Archives and Records Administration; and Devin Orgeron, North Carolina State University. We are happy to discuss your presentation ideas with you in advance of a formal submission. The Symposium Program Committee will begin reviewing proposals on March 15, 2017 and will finalize the program by April 10, 2017.

Northeast Historic Film, an independent nonprofit organization, was founded in 1986 to preserve and make available moving images of interest to the people of northern New England (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts). We hold ten million feet of film in 8mm, Super 8mm, 9.5mm, 16mm, 28mm, and 35mm and 8,000 analog and digital video recordings that do not duplicate the film holdings. NHF is located in a 1916 cinema building with purpose-built cold storage and a study center in Bucksport, a town
of 5,000 on the coast of Maine (for more info on NHF, please visit: http://www.oldfilm.org). In the Alamo Theatre on Main Street, NHF houses a 125-seat cinema with DCP, 35mm, 16mm, videotape, and DVD projection.