Film Institute Research Articles

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Soraira Urquiza loves the behind‐the‐scenes aspect of being a registrar. “We do a lot of the work no one ever thinks about,” said Urquiza, Registrar at the American Film Institute Conservatory. “You order a transcript, and there it is,” she added.

The Basel Version of the Awareness of Social Inference Test-Emotion Recognition (BASIT-ER): Preliminary validation analyses in healthy adults.

Emotion recognition (ER) is commonly impaired in many brain disorders. Therefore, its reliable and ecologically valid examination is a crucial part of any comprehensive neuropsychological assessment. In this regard, an established English-language test identifying deficits in ER is "The Awareness of Social Inference Test-Emotion Evaluation Test" (TASIT-EET). However, no comparable German-language ER test currently exists. In this study, we aimed to develop and preliminarily validate the first German-language adaption of TASIT-EET in healthy adults. We selected 22 scenes [three scenes per emotion (i.e., anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, and neutral) and one practice scene] out of the 56 TASIT-EET scenes. In collaboration with a film institute and professional actors, we filmed each scene (except neutral) at three different emotional intensities. Then, we administered these intensity version scenes to 240 cognitively and mentally healthy participants, equally distributed in sex and age, ranging from 35 to 92 years. By applying Rasch analysis, the one intensity version per scene was selected that showed neither floor nor ceiling effects in participants whose ability in ER was in the medium range. We have conducted a preliminary validation of the first German-language adaption of TASIT-EET, i.e., the "Basel Version of the Awareness of Social Inference Test-Emotion Recognition" (BASIT-ER). The BASIT-ER comprises the strengths of the TASIT-EET, while it overcomes its limitations such as ceiling effects in healthy participants and the simple response format. Next, the BASIT-ER needs to be validated in clinical populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

PENDIDIKAN KOMUNIKASI MASSA KEPADA MASYARAKAT

Media institutions are internally grouped based on their technology type, such as print media institutions, film institutions, television institutions, and so on. Often these institutions are also grouped according to their respective types, for example local broadcasting press, national broadcasting press, and international broadcasting press. Or grouping local print media institutions, national print media institutions, or international print media institutions. To anticipate regional differences, it is not uncommon for media institutions to change the time excess and the time difference between one country and another. The internal grouping of media institutions is also grouped based on the characteristics of the writings and features they present on the mass media they produce. Different types of features and writings produced by the mass media are trying to be presented to readers, viewers, or listeners through the central activity in the production and distribution of knowledge of this media institution through information, ideas, and culture. This step is carried out in order to communicate the messages to be conveyed using a personal or group approach. The goal is to provide a response to the communicant to meet personal needs or group needs.

Regulacje szczególne dotyczące czasu pracy w muzeach. Ujęcie krytyczne

This article analyses the provisions of the law on cultural activity regarding the working time of employees in museums. The provisions of the Act cover a very diverse group of entities, in particular: theatres, operas, operettas, philharmonics, orchestras, film institutions, cinemas, museums, libraries, cultural centres, art centres, art galleries and research and documentation centres in various fields of culture. The scope of their activities and the resulting need to organise the working time of their employees are radically different. As a result, when referring to the institution described in this article, i.e. a museum, the regulations on working time contained in the Act on cultural activity are often inadequate to the actual principles of operation.It is also very important that working time regulations, especially those referring to the necessity of respecting the employee’s free time, are classified as second generation human rights. Restrictions on employee rights in this area should be deeply justified. Meanwhile, with reg ard to museum employees, the time regulations contained in the Cultural Activities Act raise serious objections.

FILM EDUCATION IN GHANA: A NARRATIVE STUDY OF JIM FARA AWINDOR AND VITUS NANBIGNE

This paper studies two of Ghana’s foremost film instructors: Jim Fara Awindor and Vitus Nanbigne. Using narrative design as the research approach, the study delineates on the teaching philosophies and approaches as well as the major contributions of the two instructors to film education in Ghana. Major findings of the study included the two facilitators almost sharing the same circumstance leading to their career and professional path. They both come from the Northern areas of Ghana, they both attended the National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI) and they both won scholarships for their post-graduate studies outside of Ghana. The two facilitators also, officially, started their profession as film teachers at NAFTI. Whilst Nanbigne believes in an explorative approach to teaching, Awindor goes by what he terms the Philosophy of the Mind approach that goes beyond the curriculum to include life experiences that will mould the students, not only for scholarship but for the world. Jim’s contributions to film education in Ghana included the acceptance of documentary making as a specialised area in film education, whilst Vitus has contributed diversely in the areas of film history in Ghana and in Africa. The two facilitators mentioned the lack of key needed facilities as the major impediments to film education in Ghana. The study recommends concerted efforts by film scholars to document the professional journeys of the major film facilitators in Ghana and document their achievements and contributions. The study also calls for support from various stakeholders, to provide the necessary equipment and materials that will facilitate film education to realise its intent of training professional filmmakers in Ghana.

Indian or British Film Heritage? The Material Life of Britain's Colonial Film Archive

This article examines selected titles from a collection of colonial films shot in India between 1899 and 1947, preserved at the British Film Institute (BFI) National Archives. It tracks these films' changing cultural value from the time they entered the archive to their recent digitization and recontextualization in curatorial projects such as the 2017 UK-India Year of Culture. As part of this yearlong program, British Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri repurposed these same films in her archival documentary Around India with a Movie Camera (2018). By subverting their intended meanings, Suri's film expands the BFI's curatorial discourses and advances what this article reads as a powerful experiment in decolonizing the film archive.

Danish national film archives available for reminiscence activities

AbstractBackgroundAmong important elements’ in person‐centred care is knowledge about a person’s life, and how this ties into his/her daily activities and care. Finding historical film footage about a particular local setting, or a relevant topic, is time‐consuming and difficult for the care staff. The Danish Film Institute – a government institution under the Ministry of Culture – set out to develop a platform that made part of their historical archive available for staff, to support the national agenda of creating a dementia‐friendly society.MethodBased on knowledge from reminiscence theory, suitable archive footage was selected and grouped into four packages, consisting of several short film clips and supportive documents. The platform was tested on eight nursing home residents with a dementia diagnosed, in two groups of four. Each group performed one session per week for three weeks at the nursing home. Due to COVID‐19 restrictions, only proxy data was collected in terms of interviews with a group leader and two on‐site observers after every session, about their experiences with the material and their observed participant reactions. Data collection without the voices of the participants themselves was performed due to the need for obtaining at least proxy data on the effect of targeted film clip to stimulate frail elderlies with dementia – also in a pandemic lockdown situation. Informed consent from all participants was obtained. Data and ethics approval was done in accordance with Danish law.ResultsAlthough the archive content was not targeted people with declining cognitive function, the staff assessed the effect of this pedagogical dissemination of well‐designed film clip content, as very positive in relation to the participants with dementia. The sessions managed to stimulate engaging discussion and storytelling about the participant's own life in what can be described as deep memory recollections. Some instances of transference of new knowledge about life history to daily care of the participants were reported.ConclusionThe study instances that tailored archived film content can be used in professional person‐centred care to stimulate memories of people with dementia and quality moments in participant`s daily life.

“On and off screen: Women's work in the screen industries”

“On and off screen: Women's work in the screen industries”

French connection UK: the Dinard film festival and the politics of culture

ABSTRACT This article looks at the thirty-year history of the Dinard Film Festival (until 2018, the Dinard Festival of British Film), with a particular focus on the financial support provided by bodies with industrial and/or cultural remits: specifically, the UK Film Council, the British Council and the British Film Institute. As I discuss, Dinard is a significant case study for understanding the British film-industrial relationship with France, but also for analysing the interrelationship between economic and cultural policy-making in the British film industry. As I also argue, looking at the history of the Dinard festival offers a significant example of the ways such showcases for ‘national cinema’ are bound up with the shifting contexts of film-industry policymaking. As I conclude, the changing economic fortunes in British film, and the economic contexts informing UK film policy, have not only impacted on Dinard, but also given the festival a renewed outlook – as well as a more political one in the recent contexts of the UK’s EU referendum and ‘Brexit’.

Voices from a distance: Sámi short film production in 2020

The sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic influenced many aspects of film production, which is especially visible in the example of local cinematographies. In this article, I investigate pandemic influence on depicting homeland, memory and locality in Sámi short films. The primary concern in the pre-2000 Sámi short films was the marginalization of Sámi culture, as well as tradition-modernization oppositions. However, in the productions from 2020, a switch into the discourse about the homeland and coping with pandemic in the far north is visible. In this article, I describe productions from 2020, dividing them into three thematic categories: films about the return to the homeland, films focusing on lockdown isolation and films based on genre conventions (such as comedy or horror), used for creating a discursive approach to pandemic. In the proposed article, I analyse Sámi films from the collection of International Sámi Film Institute, produced in Norway, Sweden or Finland.

Future Is Present

St. Louis artist Van McElwee’s Time Fork: World B (2020) is currently on exhibit at Laumeier Sculpture Park in Sunset Hills, Missouri. McElwee’s Augmented Reality (AR) installation is part of the park’s 2021 thematic exploration, The Future is Present: Art and Global Change, which runs through October 20, 2021. The park is displaying artist projects covering such topics as environmental crisis, tech waste, deforestation, astronomical phenomena, and alternative realities. McElwee’s electronic and video exhibitions have found audiences in London, Vienna, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, and other world capitals. His body of media art includes over one hundred single-channel video works, installations, and web projects. McElwee’s grants and awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Film Institute Independent Filmmaker Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Independent Production Fund, a Regional Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship, and a travel grant from the government of India. McElwee’s work has been exhibited extensively and is represented in the Kitchen Video Collection in New York City, and by Bruno David Gallery in St. Louis, Heure Exquise! in France, the Inter Media Art Institute in Germany, and LUX in London, UK. In a ten-year survey of his work, the curator of Anthology Film Archives, Andrew Lampert, wrote, “McElwee is an ultra-prolific digital pioneer of the highest order.”1 Our conversation took place at Laumeier Sculpture Park, by telephone, and by email over a period of several weeks in March 2021.

The Central Asian Environment in Tajik Documentaries and Film

Central Asia was introduced to the art of filmmaking through twentieth-century Soviet film institutions. Tajikistan, the smallest of all five republics of Central Asia, was initiated into the process of filmmaking under marked resource and infrastructure constraints. The fact that there was no dearth of vision and talent in dealing with significant issues can be marked by a host of documentaries made by Tajik filmmakers, who were trained under Soviet film institutions. In fact, the environment featured in some way or another in many documentary and fiction films of the Soviet period. In the post-Soviet era, coinciding with globalization and worldwide sensitization over environmental damages and their possible remedies, many Tajik documentaries reflected a deep concern for the environment. The past decade of the previous century and the first decade of the present one have seen some tectonic shifts in the existing world order, including intensification of globalization and the...

Mengoptimalkan Peran Lembaga Perfilman Indonesia: Analisis Aspek Hak Cipta terhadap Praktik Siaran Video Ilegal

The film is part of the intellectual property rights attached to the creator. Nowadays, it is commonly agreed that violation of intellectual property rights portrays in film piracy for personal gain is inevitable, with illegal streaming services. This study aimed to examine film protection, conduct a study of film institutions, and find concepts to protect films in Indonesia. The study used a juridical method with the statute and conceptual approaches. In so doing, it used secondary data processed using library research techniques. The study showed that illegal movie streaming rampant in Indonesia practiced illegal streaming movies. It violated the intellectual property rights inherent in the creator, resulting in enormous losses for the creators. There are further problems in the laws and regulations, and the government must accommodate preventive actions. This study suggested three components: correctional, supervision, and copyright protection against illegal movie streaming in Indonesia; and these components were to maximize the role of stakeholders.
 KEYWORDS: Illegal Streaming Movies, Indonesian Film Institute, Intellectual Property Rights and Copyrights

Lights, camera, scalpel: a lookback at 100years of plastic surgery on the silver screen.

BackgroundThe presentation of medical topics in the cinema can greatly influence the public’s understanding and perception of a medical field, with regard to the doctors and surgeons, medical diagnosis, and treatment and outcome expectations. This study aims to evaluate the representation of plastic surgery in commercial films that include a character with a link to plastic surgery, either as a patient or surgeon.MethodsThe international film databases Internet Movie Database (IMDb), The American Film Institute (AFI), and British Film Institute (BFI) were searched from 1919 to 2019 to identify feature-length films with a link to plastic surgery. Movies were visualized and analyzed to identify themes, and the portrayal of plastic surgery was rated negative or positive, and realistic or unrealistic.ResultsA total of 223 films were identified from 1919 to 2019, produced across 19 countries. Various genres were identified including drama (41), comedy (25), and crime (23). A total of 172 patient characters and 57 surgeon characters were identified as major roles, and a further 102 surgeons as minor roles. Disparities were noted in presentation of surgeons, both in terms of race and gender, with the vast majority of surgeons being white and male. In total only 11 female surgeons were portrayed and only one black surgeon. Thirteen themes emerged: face transplantation, crime, future society, surgeon mental status, body dysmorphic disorder, vanity, anti-aging, race, reconstructive surgery, deformity, scarring, burns, and gender transitioning. The majority of films (146/223) provide an unrealistic view of plastic surgery, painted under a negative light (80/146). Only 20 films provide a positive realistic image (24/77).ConclusionsThere exists a complicated relationship between plastic surgery and its representation on film. Surgical and aesthetic interventions are portrayed unrealistically, with surgeons and patients presented negatively, perpetuating stigma, particularly with regard to cosmetic surgery. Cinema is also characterized by lack of representation of female and non-white surgeons. Recruitment of surgeons as technical advisors would help present a more realistic, representative view, without necessarily sacrificing creativity.Level of evidence: Not ratable.

Spezial-Nummer der Asta Nielsen-Zeitung from 11 November 1911

ABSTRACT In view of the loss of all contracts and business correspondence on the three exclusive long feature film Asta Nielsen star series, finding the Spezial-Nummer der Asta Nielsen-Zeitung (Special Edition of the Asta Nielsen Magazine) from 11 November 1911 in the library of the German Film Institute (DFF) in Frankfurt am Main represents a small sensation. In this sales brochure, the Projections Actien-Gesellschaft ‘Union’ (PAGU) informed German cinema managers of the company’s conditions for renting the first Asta Nielsen series, i.e. graduated rental prices, planned release dates and suppliers. It reveals the organization and planning of the world’s first exclusive long feature film star series which included advance booking of the whole series and the splitting of the German film market into Monopolfilm distribution circuits. Furthermore, the twelve pages of the Spezial-Nummer der Asta Nielsen-Zeitung contain background information on the film star Asta Nielsen, ads for the first four long features of the series and models for local cinema advertising.

The Rival Afterlives of George Eliot in Textual and Visual Culture: A Bicentenary Reflection

Abstract George Eliot (1819–80) received markedly less national and international acknowledgment during the bicentenary of her birth in 2019 than Charles Dickens did for his bicentenary in 2012. In seeking to understand why, this article conducts a comparative evaluation of Eliot and Dickens in textual and visual media to examine how and where enduring authorial celebrity is constructed. Using Google Books Ngrams, the presence of Dickens and Eliot in textual culture from the 1800s to 2000 is assessed. Eliot is found to keep pace with and/or supersede Dickens in this mass digital repository, a fact that sits at odds with her secondary position in twenty-first-century popular culture. The online catalog of the British Film Institute Reuben Library discloses that adaptations of Eliot's work in film and TV are vastly outnumbered by those of Dickens. We argue that this disparity between Eliot's textual and visual legacies can be traced to extrinsic factors relating to the idea of celebrity and the posthumous management of her reputation, combined with the robust afterlife of nineteenth-century insults about her appearance. At the same time, the intrinsic qualities of her works delimit their easy remediation into mass visual culture. Despite this, our methods of distant reading Eliot's vibrant afterlife in mass textual repositories open up new avenues for exploring her legacy beyond the bicentenary.

Costs in a Film’s Production Process

Purpose: Film production is associated with incurring costs. This article aims to analyze the production process of a feature film through the prism of incurred production costs. The indirect aim is to answer the question: What is the structure of the set of costs in the produc-tion process of an audiovisual work? Design/Methodology/Approach: The study concerns the production costs of film work based on the cost philosophy of the Polish Film Institute and American solutions. The study uses the descriptive and comparative analysis method of various aspects of film production; the deductive-inductive reasoning method; the costing method; the logical analysis method based on the literature on film production organization and accounting; the qualitative method in the form of unstructured face-to-face interviews with film producers con-ducted at production courses at the L. Schiller National Higher School of Film, Television, and Theatre in Łodź. Findings: The amount of cost of a film project is determined by the film script. The structure of the set of costs in the different stages of the film production process in the world is simi-lar. The fees are an essential item in the cost of a feature film. The production organization criterion and the time criterion shape the film production costs. Practical Implications: Efficient organization of the film production process affects the cost of ownership of film work. Originality/Value: There is a need to explore further the research issue of cost in film pro-duction, especially in terms of quantitative research.

The limits of political influence – the limits of creativity: the first 25 years of FAMU

This study deals with the Czechoslovak film school FAMU from its inception until the 1960s. Several specific issues from the history of the institution are selected. The study examines to what extent the establishment of the school was influenced by the Communist Party (which strongly influenced Czechoslovak cultural policy from 1945 before seising monopolistic political power in February 1948) and if the Soviet VGIK was really a model for FAMU, as is sometimes maintained. The second area of interest is the production practice of student films, which the author uses to illustrate the institutional, as well as broader social and political changes in the school during the first 25 years of its existence. Emphasis is placed on topics such as students’ creative freedom (including their occasionally dissenting approaches), formal versus real competencies in the initiation of a film project, approval mechanisms and possible circumvention of the given rules, etc. The study works with those student films that were officially distributed in Czechoslovakia at the time. It is based on original archival and oral history research combined with secondary sources, including commemorative audio-visual works. The study’s methodological approach is rooted in the history of film institutions, production studies, and the political history of film.

Revolt, She Said

During summer 2018, Club Des Femmes (CDF), in collaboration with the Independent Cinema Office funded by the British Film Institute (BFI), curated a UK-wide touring season of films considering the aftermath of May 1968. ‘Revolt, She Said: Women and Film after ’68’ comprised nine feature films and eight accompanying shorts, exploring the legacy of 1968 on contemporary feminisms, art and activism transnationally. In this article, two members of CDF unpack the queer feminist ethics and affects of the tour, through the voices of multiple participants, and framed conceptually by Sara Ahmed’s ‘willful feminist’ and Donna Haraway’s ‘staying with the trouble’.

The Labor of Curating: Fandom, Museums, and the Value of Fan Heritage

The Labor of Curating: Fandom, Museums, and the Value of Fan Heritage