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Conferences

Once a year, Eye is the venue for an international conference attended by film scholars, archivists, curators and restorers. The conferences are organized in collaboration with national and international partners from both the academic world and the field of film heritage.

Still from La peine du talion (1906).
Still from La peine du talion (1906).

Eye International Conference

Previous editions

In a black and white film strip, a table is pictured with a black dog standing on top of it. On a chair next to the table, a white cat sits looking straight at the camera.

Eye International Conference 2024

26 through 29 May 2024, the 9th Eye International Conference will take place in Eye Filmmuseum.

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On a lit-up background, a gloved hand moves a small magnifying glass across an analogue film strip which features the number eight on a pink background (campaign image Eye International Conference 2023)

Eye International Conference 2023

Eye Filmmuseum and the University of Amsterdam present the 8th Eye International Conference from 4 through 7 June.

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Still uit REEL UNREEL (2011) van Francis Alÿs
Francis Alÿs - REEL UNREEL (2011)

Eye International Conference 2022

Global Audiovisual Archiving: Exchange of Knowledge and Practices

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Eye International Conference 2021

Eye presents two online masterclasses looking back and ahead at the previous (cancelled due to Covid-19) and upcoming Eye International Conference.

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2020: Water, Climate, and Migration

The annual Eye International Conference explores contemporary archival and academic debates, and in 2020 hosts the biennial Orphan Film Symposium.

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still from Les six soeurs Dainef (unknown, FR 1902)
still from Les six soeurs Dainef (unknown, FR 1902)

2019: Sisters

The theme of the Eye International Conference 2019 is Sisters, taken both literally and figuratively within a wide range of theoretical and historical angles.

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2018: Activating the Archive

How can audio-visual collections be mobilized for the common good? The Eye International Conference 2018 will explore answers to these and other questions.

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2017: The Reel Thing

in 2017, the conference will host for two days a special 40th edition of the technical symposium The Reel Thing.

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2016: Exposing the Film Apparatus

Eye International Conference 2016

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2015: The Colour Fantastic: Chromatic Worlds of Silent Cinema

This conference will celebrate this milestone anniversary by providing a new forum to explore contemporary archival and academic debates around colour in the silent era.

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2014: Orphan Film Symposium 9

In 2014, Eye partnered with New York University and the University of Amsterdam to organize the first Orphan Film Symposium in Europe. This biennale was devoted to orphan works.

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2020: Water, Climate, and Migration

From 23-27 May 2020, the biennial NYU Orphan Film Symposium was supposed to return to Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam, focussing on the urgent but perennial subjects of Water, Climate, and Migration, by examining how neglected works have recorded, represented, and imagined these phenomena throughout the history of moving images. Unfortunately, the 2020 Eye International Conference / Orphan Film Symposium had to be cancelled due to the global health crisis. The Orphan Film Symposium migrated to an online edition.

2019: Sisters

In 2019, the 10th Women and the Silent Screen Conference was hosted by the 5th Eye International Conference (25-29 May). Women and the Silent Screen (WSS), an international conference held biennially, brings together research focusing on all forms of women’s presence in the earliest decades of motion picture history. After its first edition in Utrecht in 1999, the conference came back to the Netherlands to celebrate its twentieth year. The theme of WSS X was Sisters, taken both literally and figuratively within a wide range of theoretical and historical angles.

2018: Activating the Archive

The 2018 edition has celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of Preservation & Presentation of the Moving Image. This master’s programme now has around 180 alumni who are active in museums, archives and universities all over the world. The conference theme was Activating the Archive. Audio-Visual Collections and Civic Engagement, Political Dissent and Societal Change.

2017: The Reel Thing

In 2017 the conference has devoted two days to the latest and most innovative restoration projects with a special European version of the successful symposium The Reel Thing. The event was a collaboration with the founders of The Reel Thing, Grover Crisp and Michael Friend (Sony Pictures Entertainment) and the Association of Moving Picture Archivists (AMIA).

2016: Exposing the Film Apparatus

In 2016, due to moving to the new Collection Centre, Eye organized a smaller though well-attended international symposium, Exposing the Film Apparatus.

2015: The Colour Fantastic: Chromatic Worlds of Silent Cinema

In 2015, in collaboration with the UvA and the universities of Bristol and St. Andrews, Eye presented the conference The Colour Fantastic: Chromatic Worlds of Silent Cinema. It examined the use of colour in the era of silent film. Besides presentations by international specialists from various disciplines, the programme included screenings of restored and/or rarely seen films.

2014: First Orphan Film Symposium

In 2014, Eye partnered with New York University and the University of Amsterdam to organize the first Orphan Film Symposium to be held in Europe. This biennale was devoted to so-called orphan works. Over 200 international guests from thirty countries came to Eye for the event.

Contact

If you have any questions or want further information about the conferences, please contact Eye Academic: conference@eyefilm.nl