Film Institute Research Articles

The Mistress of Bond: Eileen Sullivan, and the Role of Cutting the Cloth of James Bond's Wardrobe and Beyond

This article spotlights the work of Eileen Sullivan and her career as a wardrobe mistress, later wardrobe supervisor, which included working on the James Bond films from Dr No (1962) until You Only Live Twice (1967). It will further consider how her career and role as a wardrobe mistress and supervisor changed within the British film industry from the mid-1940s until the mid-1980s, through personal papers shared by her family with me. Alongside this, the article draws upon papers available in the Film Finances Archive, the British Film Institute (BFI) and the British Library. This article will work to redress the absence in scholarship on the labour provided by costume workers below that of the costume designer, which as Melanie Williams (2016) has previously recognised, has been rendered invisible despite their costume work appearing on screen that contributes to the overall visual coherence of a film’s design. It will also address the difficulties of researching the work of wardrobe personnel who have hitherto remained unacknowledged in broader scholarship, and analyse the role of the wardrobe mistress and supervisor including agency and labour, and the impact of caring responsibilities on this ‘gendered’ role.

Year zero of tomorrow’s pasts

ABSTRACT We will discuss the impact of AI on storytelling, particularly in the context of Indigenous media-making. We will do this broadly in reference to our own practices and artistic processes and our current collaboration, Tomorrow’s Pasts, specifically in relation to our experience of developing and creating artistic and creative projects with AI-generative media.We will speak to the notion that Indigenous knowledge systems tend to be relational whereas Western knowledge systems can be cumulative and extractive, and that these points of difference expose a colonial imprint on conceptualizing and producing projects that deal with artistic and cultural production in general and emerging technologies in the narrative space in particular. In this we will refer to the growing field of research into indigenous data sovereignty.We will draw directly on 3 ‘events’ in which we participated in 2023: (1) Frame Doco Lab, Victoria, Australia (2) The International Sami Film Institute’s Indigenous Film Conference in Guovdageaidnu, Norway and (3) Art + Australia’s Study-In on AI + Race + Art, Melbourne, Australia. our in-conversation at the Indigenous Film Conference (August 17–20) presented by the International Sami Film Institute in Norway.

A Politics of Working-Class Culture and the Culture of Working-Class Politics: The Aesthetics and Activism of Amber Film and Photography Collective and the Berwick Street Film Collective

This paper examines how Amber Film and Photography Collective’s working-class affiliations and Berwick Street Film Collective’s middle-class makeup shaped their divergent approaches to depicting ‘working-class issues’ by drawing on the films of both collectives, alongside archival materials and oral testimonies. By engaging in a comparative reading, I highlight the breadth of Amber’s oeuvre, tracing the development of their filmmaking strategies—which included agitprop, the fusion of factual and fictional formal elements and transnational collaboration with the German DemocraticRepublic’s film production company, Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft (DEFA)—to demonstrate that, contrary to criticisms levelled by contemporary theorists clustered around Screen magazine and the British Film Institute, Amber transcended the constraints of Documentary Realism by incorporating radical avant-garde aesthetics into their oppositional practice. Concomitantly, Amber’s radical filmmaking is positioned as relative to its members’ working-class solidarities, with their concern for championing working-class cultures contrasted with Berwick Street’s broader political agendas. Through foregrounding this politics/culture dialectic, the practical repercussions of Berwick Street’s middle-class representation of ‘working-class interests’ are investigated while the theoretical criteria by which avant-garde depictions of ‘working-class issues’ are evaluated are themselves assessed.

An Englishman abroad: Evening Land and the struggles of Peter Watkins within Scandinavian film culture of the 1970s

This article analyses Aftenlandet (Evening Land), a film made for the Danish Film Institute in 1976 by Peter Watkins, one of the world’s most politically radical directors and a pioneer of docudrama. The aim is to provide a detailed historical account of the life cycle of a key but hitherto critically neglected film in the director’s career: his last to be professionally funded for nearly 25 years and one that saw Watkins working within the very particular milieu of Denmark, investigating, often controversially, the perceived political fault lines of Danish society during the 1970s. The article traces how this English-born filmmaker came to be working in Scandinavia, details the production of Evening Land and provides a close critical reading of the film’s various themes and techniques as well as considering its reception and aftermath. Correspondence and production files from Watkins’ own personal archive reveal the difficulties the filmmaker clearly experienced as something of ‘an Englishman abroad’ attempting to find a place for himself within Scandinavian film culture of the period. The article asserts that this experience eventually contributed to Watkins’ decision to quit Scandinavia altogether following the completion of Evening Land, a decision that would inadvertently propel Watkins out of the world of professional filmmaking for nearly a quarter century. The article argues, however, that Evening Land, a film long obscure and critically neglected, still has cultural resonance and applicability to our own times in the twenty-first century.

Polish Film Institute: Selected Legal and Financial Aspects

Legal issues concerning cinematography are part of the constitutional regulations concerning national heritage and cultural heritage. Supporting the development of cinematography is the main task of the Polish Film Institute. The aim of this article was to examine the legal and financial issues concerning this state legal entity (in particular, its revenues and expenses). In addition, the authors set out to determine whether the Polish Film Institute is an effective entity and whether its functioning is beneficial to Polish culture and national heritage. The publication uses a dogmatic-legal method and an empirical method (the financial plans of the Polish Film Art Institute from 2017–2022 were analysed).

Towards audience-centric film funding: New strategies for commissioning youth films in Denmark

This article investigates the changed market conditions for production of films for young audiences in the on-demand age. More precisely, I analyse how the public funding of films for children and youth in Denmark has undergone significant change in response to intensified competition and waning audience interest. From the outset of the Commissioner’s Scheme for films for children and youth at the Danish Film Institute (DFI), the state subsidized main financier in the national industry, the institution has changed away from selective funding based on cultural evaluation criteria towards audience-centric funding based on market orientation and data-driven audience insights. The DFI’s objective is to reach young audiences more precisely with films that are relevant to them. Yet, one of the implications so far of this practice has been that funds earmarked by law for films for children and youth are spent on films for adults, with significant ramifications for domestic film culture for young audiences.

Historical Perceptions about Children and Film: Case Studies of the British Board of Film Censors, the British Film Institute, and the Children’s Film Foundation from the 1910s to the 1950s

Abstract This article explores how ideas regarding children and film were shaped and shifted from the 1910s to the 1950s by consulting three critical moments and key institutions: the British Board of Film Censors in the 1910s, the British Film Institute in the 1930s, and the Children’s Film Foundation in the 1950s. By doing so, the article elucidates how discourse and ideas about children’s films and audiences have transformed, resulting in policy shifts from restrictive to encouraging approaches that appreciate children’s tastes and the entertainment value of children’s cinema. Based on comparative historical research, this article empirically reveals that perceptions of children’s cinema have changed throughout history and that the policy documents offer significant materials to explain this.

Cinematic musicking in Mozambique

Cinematic musicking in Mozambique

Connecting the dots: La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc, a musical score and censorship

ABSTRACT Film historians have long known that the version of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (1928) shown at its French premiere was heavily censored by the state and the Catholic church. Exactly what was cut, however, has never been entirely clear, meaning that almost all of the critical literature about the subject has been forced to accept the testimony of those who claim to have seen it at the time. An overlooked source that would help resolve the debate is the score commissioned for its Paris premiere. It includes vital evidence in the form of intertitles and actions that correspond to a print acquired by the British Film Institute in 1947. A detailed comparison of screen and musical time convincingly demonstrates that the 1947 print is a copy of the censored version, and a broader analysis of empathetic musical gesture and specially written lyrics for choir and soloists supports that contention. This analysis underlines the valuable contribution that film-music studies can make to film history in helping reveal for the first time exactly what it was to which the authorities objected in Dreyer’s famous film.

The Establishment of Chinese Film Industry Studies and the Correction of Film Industrialization – Review and Prospect of the Twenty Years of Film Industrialization Reform

Abstract Over the past two decades, the industrialization of film and its discursive space have presented an open trend. Chinese film industry studies encompass multidimensional connotations involving economics, culture, and ideology. National will and policy-driven initiatives form the underlying logic of “industry studies,” while market-oriented approaches connect attention with the commodification of films, becoming the domain for the industry’s transformation. In the past twenty years, the industrial reform process of the Chinese film industry, along with innovations in film policies and institutions and their implementation, has reflected and outlined this multifaceted context. The film industry possesses the attributes of economy, culture, and ideology and, as a public good, includes issues related to attention orientation and correction. The construction of Chinese film industry studies, and the in-depth examination of the results and issues related to market discourse, is significant for further promoting the sustainable development of the film industry and fostering the prosperity of Chinese cinema.

‘A first class medium’: the cautious anti-communism of the ICFTU’s International Labour Film Institute, 1953-1972

ABSTRACT Between 1953 and 1972 the International Labor Film Institute (ILFI), affiliated with yet organizationally separate from the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), spread knowledge about, and encouraged the use of, films among Western trade unionists. Holding five formal film festivals, the ILFI also engaged in the collection and distribution of information about films and filmstrips on trade union topics, themes, and successes. Yet compared to other ICFTU forums, ICFTU and ILFI officials were relatively muted on Cold War issues when it came to film activities. When they did discuss such topics, they evidenced a level of uncertainty and confusion regarding how intensely to engage anti-communist messaging in the area of labor films, indicating a concern over how to strike the correct balance between showcasing topics solely focused on labor and engaging Cold War themes. Studying the ILFI and Western labor’s relationship to the medium of film thus reveals both an anxiety among Western labor leaders during the early and middle years of the Cold War over how best to weigh their desire to help workers with their goal of appearing sufficiently anti-communist as well as another way the vagueness of the ICFTU’s slogan of ‘free trade unionism’ impacted the ICFTU’s activities.

Media Convergence and Game-Based Learning: Developing a Hypothesis of Film Education for the Post-Media Age

The purpose of this paper is to develop a hypothesis of film education built on a theoretical speculation concerning media convergence between cinema and video games, game-based learning and participatory culture, in the interest of schools willing to introduce the subject in their curricula and try out new educational approaches, embracing the inclusive definition of ‘film’ adopted by British Film Institute (2015).

Continuance Intention to Iclass E-learning for Film Institute Undergraduates at Sichuan University of Media and Communications

Background and Aim: This article's goal was to look at the most vital components that fundamentally ripple through initial degree film institute graduates at Sichuan University of Media and Communications in the Sichuan region of China who are majoring in one of four film-related fields. Perceived Usefulness (PU), Confirmation (CON), Information Quality (IQ), System Quality (SYQ), Service Quality (SEQ), Satisfaction (SAT), and Continuance Intention (CI) were all scanned into to see especially when those ideas drove learners receiving Iclass via the internet in terms of theoretical structure. Materials and Methods: The questionnaire was given to the allocated undergraduates in the four target majors using the quantitative survey approach with 458 samples. Materials from the research were gathered in this poll implementing a simultaneous method of collection that included judgmental and quota samples. Methods for analysis of data such as Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Model (SEM) are currently used. Results: The findings from data analysis confirmed all of the predictions, with interpersonal factors showing to have the strongest and most immediate impact on overall Information Quality (IQ). Conclusion: The leadership and educational employees coming from the Sichuan University of Media and Communications in China's Sichuan province ought to highlight the latent variables that have had an enormous impact on continuance intention (CI) for the Iclass e-learning and create the tightly linked request modify by what they discover of this quantitative investigation in order during younger learners to recognize the superiority of Iclass receiving instruction via the internet.

The French New Wave: Critical Landmarks (new expanded edition), Peter Graham and Ginette Vincendeau, eds. (2022)

Review of: The French New Wave: Critical Landmarks (new expanded edition), Peter Graham and Ginette Vincendeau, eds. (2022) New York: Bloomsbury Academic on behalf of the British Film Institute, 306pp., ISBN: 9781839022302 (hbk), $95.00

Social media usage and civic engagement among communication students

This study through a quantitative survey and a purposive sampling approach examined the use of social media for civic engagement among 200 students at the Ghana Institute of Journalism, National Film and Television Institute and the African University College of Communications. Data for the study were gathered from primary and secondary sources. The study revealed that there is a strong positive correlation between social media usage among communication students and civic participation. The study revealed that majority of students are active users of social media with Facebook being the most preferred choice. This research contributes to the active use of social media in civic engagement and highlights the essence of political actors capitalising on the numerous advantages provided by social media in reaching out to a larger group of citizens for political engagement.

Projecting Creative Processes: Art Films and Art Education in Post-war Britain

The relationship between film and art education has received little scholarly attention. This paper describes and discusses one instance in the long and multifaceted history of this relationship: the educational uses of nonfiction films about art and artists in post-Second World War Britain, known then invariably either as ‘films on art’ or ‘art films.’ As a new international genre (backed by UNESCO’s educational distribution schemes), it gained particular momentum in the UK with the Arts Council of Great Britain, a public body, set up after the war with a mission ‘to increase the accessibility of the fine arts.’ And one of the ways it did was via 16mm projection. Alongside building a substantial film library, in 1950 the Council, in collaboration with the British Film Institute (BFI), started a new mobile cinema scheme, the Art Film Tour, to directly engage with the nontheatrical cinema sector, especially its educational venues. By drawing on my research in the Arts Council Archive, I propose to adopt a ‘historical pragmatics’ perspective and to study the Art Film Tour’s media configuration as a dispositif (Kessler, 2018). In the 1950s, with an increasing number of art films dedicated to artists at work, art students encountered cinematic renderings of the creative process by renowned modern artists, such as Picasso, Henry Moore and Jackson Pollock. And therefore, I make a case for an inductive analysis of ‘showing making’ on screen and its implications within historicised art education contexts.

The Advocacy Coalition in the British Film Institute in Its Early Days

This paper explores the interactions and cooperation between public-sector, business-sector, and civil-society stakeholders in developing British film policy for educational and cultural purposes. In particular, this paper adopts the Advocacy Coalition Framework to explain why and how public authorities, film industry organizations, and educationalists efficiently communicated and cooperated with each other in making the British Film Institute. By doing that, this paper explains (1) how commercial business and social workers, who were initially hostile, could build constructive partnerships; (2) how inactive, noninterventionist governments could be involved in the policymaking for cultural sectors; and (3) how private business could be persuaded into supporting cultural and educational policy for noncommercial purposes.

Blonde (2022)

Blonde (2022)

100 American Horror FilmsBarry KeithGrant. British Film Institute, 2022.

The Journal of American CultureVolume 46, Issue 1 p. 112-113 Book Review 100 American Horror Films Barry Keith Grant. British Film Institute, 2022. Scott R. Stalcup, Corresponding Author Scott R. Stalcup stalcupsr@hotmail.com Northern Illinois UniversityCorresponding author mail id:-: stalcupsr@hotmail.comSearch for more papers by this author Scott R. Stalcup, Corresponding Author Scott R. Stalcup stalcupsr@hotmail.com Northern Illinois UniversityCorresponding author mail id:-: stalcupsr@hotmail.comSearch for more papers by this author First published: 27 March 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/jacc.13438Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume46, Issue1Special Issue: FashionMarch 2023Pages 112-113 RelatedInformation

Art Cinema and India's Forgotten Futures: Film and History in the Postcolony by Rochona Majumdar

Reviewed by: Art Cinema and India's Forgotten Futures: Film and History in the Postcolony by Rochona Majumdar Lakshmi Padmanabhan (bio) Art Cinema and India's Forgotten Futures: Film and History in the Postcolony by Rochona Majumdar. Columbia University Press. 2021. 320 pages. $140.00 hardcover; $35.00 paperback; also available in e-book. Rochona Majumdar's Art Cinema and India's Forgotten Futures: Film and History in the Postcolony is a history of the art cinema movement in India in the immediate aftermath of decolonization and an argument for reading Indian art cinema, particularly the work of Bengali filmmakers Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, and Satyajit Ray, as forms of historiographic thinking, which provide conceptual insights into the postcolonial present. Art Cinema and India's Forgotten Futures charts the cultural history of the art cinema movement in India, focusing on the 1950s to the 1980s, a period that saw the rise of state support for independent filmmaking fueled by an optimistic vision of the newly formed nation-state's role in cultural life and the subsequent decline of these institutions and the disillusionment that followed the intense political upheavals of the 1970s. The book, which is divided into two parts, is structured by the historical break between the optimistic political atmosphere of the early decades following Indian independence and the political disillusionment of the 1970s and after. Majumdar opens by connecting the rise of art cinema or "good films" with the pedagogical project of the newly formed nation-state to produce "good citizens."1 It is worth noting here that throughout the text, Majumdar [End Page 213] highlights the difficulty of limiting the boundary or unifying characteristics of art cinema as a category, precisely because of the ongoing disagreements about what constituted "good films" and "good citizens." Across the first section of the text, she utilizes the term interchangeably with quality films (chapter 1), new cinema (chapter 2), radical cinema (chapter 3), and several other terms emerging from the archival sources, including parallel cinema and the Indian New Wave. Rather than providing art cinema with a specific aesthetic or political approach, Majumdar isolates the aspirational quality of the category. In Majumdar's narration, art cinema emerged through the productive intersection of elite interests in advocating for cinema as a medium of art (in contrast to the commercial cinema emerging from the well-funded studios in Mumbai and Chennai, for example) and the pedagogical aim of the national bureaucracy to transcend social divisions and educate a universal Indian citizen.2 Majumdar locates the rise of the film society movement, and the investment by educated elites in fostering a popular film culture, as intellectually aligned with the broader task of educating the newly postcolonial citizen-subject, who was understood to be inexperienced in the practice of democracy. Art cinema was viewed as a pedagogical tool, one that utilized an industrial medium (which aligned it with the broader Nehruvian economic development model centered on industrialization and investment in modern technology) to foster popular sovereignty, educating the masses about their role in a secular democratic society. Between 1959 and 1964, several of the most important institutions of film education and preservation were inaugurated, including the Federation of Film Societies of India (1959), Film Finance Corporation (1960), the Film Institute of India (1960), and the National Film Archive of India (1964).3 The first section provides us with a cultural history of these institutions and examines the role of key figures such as Marie Seton, a British film critic and evangelist for independent film and art cinema. Through this section, Majumdar tracks the underlying faith that these institutions and figures cultivated in the pedagogical possibilities of art cinema as a form of aesthetic education in a country where the sheer plurality of linguistic communities and rates of illiteracy made developing a shared public sphere through written text an ongoing concern for the political elite and artists alike. Their aspiration for cinema to transcend regional and linguistic boundaries and speak in a universal humanist language was also a measure of its aesthetic value and sociological importance. As Majumdar explains, the idealistic view of art cinema's pedagogical function crumbles in the 1970s with the increasingly authoritarian...