Restoration, Digitisation & Re-Use

Programme

• Karen Pearlman: Impossible Image (25')

  Artist Karen Pearlman took a deep dive into the past with the aid of the DVD boxed set Cinema’s First Nasty Women which brings together 99 early examples of cinema. In The Impossible Image, a nine-minute documentary/dance film, Pearlman remixes scenes from silent films with contemporary dance footage thereby juxtaposing the anarchy and roleplay of the women in the 1910s to the humour, irony and drive of the dancers from our era.

• Ansuya Blom in Film (25’)

  Ansuya Blom and curator Simona Monizza will introduce Amazing Grace (1989, 14’), a recently completed restoration of Blom’s film. The latter’s drawings and films focus on the misunderstandings and confusion that result from the friction between individuals and the outside world; Blom makes conspicuous use of texts and solitary words in her work. In 2019, Eye acquired all Blom’s films in order to digitise a selection in cooperation with the artist.

• Digitising Ed van der Elsken’s films (20')

  Various key films by Ed van der Elsken were, until recently, imperfectly digitised. They have now, in cooperation with Beeld en Geluid and Van der Elsken's heirs, been rescanned and digitally remastered. Curator Mark Paul Meyer and John Treffers will discuss the project using a number of examples as well as talk about making Van der Elsken’s films available on the Eye Film Player.

• Restauration of Twenty Four Dollar Island (Robert J. Flaherty, 1925, 14') (20')

  Twenty Four Dollar Island is one of the classics of 1920s avant-garde American cinema. The only extant 35 mm copies are in the Eye collection and the Gosfilmofond archive. These have been digitised by Eye (4K) and were restored by Bruce Posner and Thomas Bakels (ALPHA-OMEGA digital). A specially composed soundtrack will accompany the screening featuring music by Donald Sosin. Presented by curator Mark Paul Meyer.