Archivio Aperto 16th edition                    25–29.10.2023                   

The Future is Memory

The Future is Memory. Memory is a continuing act of creation. So wrote the neuroscientist Rosalind Cartwright as she studied dreams, the human activity par excellence for reinventing the archives of our lives. If memory is a creative act, we can think of it as a laboratory for building the future, as a substance to weave images for new landscapes, relationships, and happenings.

The Future is Memory

Attics, cellars, closets, and trunks closed and never opened again, boxes full of dust from which sprout forgotten faces, (un)buried emotions, places disappeared or changed on maps, past lives still pulsing in the undergrounds of our present: rediscovering the images of memory is a creative act but also a desiring act, a loving gaze for something that no longer is and, at the same time, isn’t there yet. And so there is no future without memory, the very vocabulary of our language for conveying new worlds; nor is there a memory without a future, because the act of remembering cannot close itself in the nostalgic dimension of the past without an open gaze to the future. The 16th edition of Archivio Aperto is dedicated to the future of memory: which forms narrate the past, redefine it, or even forget it? What images to remember together, to perform the collective act of (re)creating the world? The Future is Memory.

Credits

Artistic direction

Sergio Fant, Giulia Simi

Organisational direction and program coordinator

Vanessa Mangiavacca

Official competition selection committee

Sergio Fant, Giulia Simi

Film programmers & curators

Paolo Simoni, Mirco Santi, Michele Manzolini, Elena Pirazzoli, Francesca Maffioli, Francesca Brignoli, Enrico Riccobene, Agnese Garbari, Lucia Tralli, Benedetta Valdesalici, Jennifer Malvezzi, Claudio Giapponesi

Organisational assistant

Gaia Brauzi

Social network & communication

Carlotta Centonze, Glesni Williams

Press office

Luciana Apicella

Video & photo production

Paolo Lancellotti, Agnese Garbari, Sara Fabbiani

Hospitality

Gaia Brauzi, Enxhi Noni

Accreditation

Chiara Garbari
Content archive                   

Competition

A History Of The World According To Getty Images

A History Of The World According To Getty Images

Richard Misek

A meticulously crafted journey through some of the most significant moments of historical change ever caught on camera and an impassioned commentary on how commercial archives influence what we see.

El Juicio

The Trial

El Juicio

Ulises De La Orden

1985, Buenos Aires, Argentina. The trial of the Military Juntas of the last dictatorship (1976/83), accused of crimes against humanity.

Negative/Positive Film

Negative/Positive Film

Federica Foglia

A handmade film collage composed of layers of 16mm erotic films from the 1940s and 1970s, nature documentaries, and layers of organic materials.

Jill, Uncredited

Jill, Uncredited

Anthony Ing

Constructed entirely from Jill Goldston’s performances, the film is a lyrical journey through popular culture, and a haunting study of a life lived out of focus.

Kapr Code

Kapr Code

Lucie Králová

A documentary opera featuring the contradictory life of progressive composer and prominent communist Jan Kapr (1914-88), Stalin award laureate, later banned in socialist Czechoslovakia.

Kim’s Video

Kim’s Video

David Redmon & Ashley Sabin

With the ghosts of cinema past leading his way, Redmon embarks on a seemingly quixotic quest to track down what happened to the legendary Kim’s Video collection and to free it from purgatory.

Mast-del

Mast-del

Maryam Tafakory

A love song that would never pass through the censors, Mast-del is about forbidden bodies and desires, both inside and outside post-revolution Iranian cinema.

Mudos Testigos

Silent Witnesses

Mudos Testigos

Luis OspinaJerónimo Atehortúa

An imaginary journey through the history of Colombia (and its cinema) during the convulsive first half of the 20th century, using solely the surviving footage of Colombian silent cinema.

National Anarchist: Lino Brocka

National Anarchist: Lino Brocka

Khavn De La Cruz

Did Lino Brocka really die from an innocent car accident? Or was he maliciously murdered by one of his enemies in the Marcos/Aquino administrations?

Navigators

Navigators

Noah Teichner

December 1919. The U.S. government deports 249 anarchists and radicals on the “Soviet Ark.” Five years later, this same ship becomes the décor for Buster Keaton’s slapstick comedy “The Navigator.”

Ninguna Estrella

No Star

Ninguna Estrella

Tana Gilbert

No Star explores the traces left in the family archive, and the contradictions we live with motherhood.

Non-Aligned: Scenes from the Labudović Reels

Non-Aligned: Scenes from the Labudović Reels

Mila Turajlić

A documentary that takes us on an archival journey through the birth of the Third World project, based on never-before-seen 35mm footage shot by Stevan Labudović, the cameraman of Yugoslav President Tito.

R21 aka Restoring Solidarity

R21 aka Restoring Solidarity

Mohanad Yaqubi

An addition to and a reflection on a collection of 20 16mm films, safeguarded in Tokyo by the Japanese solidarity movement with Palestine.

Scenes of Extraction

Scenes of Extraction

Sanaz Sohrabi

An archival constellation with the still and moving images of British Petroleum Archives, documenting the expansive colonial network behind the British energy complex.

Solaris Mon Amour

Solaris Mon Amour

Kuba Mikurda, Laura Pawela & djLenar

An extraordinary found footage documentary inspired by Stanisław Lem’s “Solaris”.

That day, on the river

That day, on the river

Lei Lei

Newspaper clippings, historical photographs and a film about a female basketball player serve as the source material for an exploration of the director’s father’s childhood in provincial China.

המצלמה של דוקטור מוריס

The Camera of Doctor Morris

המצלמה של דוקטור מוריס

Itamar AlcalayMeital Zvieli

An eccentric pilot in the British Armed Forces and his young wife flee a devastated post-WWII Europe and arrive in Eilat, the newly-founded Israel’s southernmost town.

The Veiled City

The Veiled City

Natalie Cubides-Brady

A speculative city symphony inspired by London’s Great Smog of 1952.

Trip After

Trip After

Ukrit Sa-nguanhai

In the 1960s, the United States Information Service (USIS) mobile film units travelled around the northeast region of Thailand showing their self-produced propaganda films to rural audiences as a part of a psychological operation.

Out of competition

Archivi Vivi – 16mm. Soul of a Century

Archivi Vivi – 16mm. Soul of a Century

It has been 100 years since the 16mm format was invented. The 16th edition of the festival pays tribute to this revolutionary format whose parable cannot be said to have ended with the presentation of the Bompiani film collection and the live soundtrack of three archival films.

Archivio Aperto Educational

Archivio Aperto Educational

The Archivio Aperto Educational section is dedicated to the presentation of projects carried out with schools by and in collaboration with Archivio Home Movies Archive.

Archivio Aperto Professional

Archivio Aperto Professional

Archivio Aperto Professional launches a call for filmmakers and authors/authors to support the development of works that focus on the creative reuse of archival materials.

Art & Experimental – Italian Film Collection

Art & Experimental – Italian Film Collection

The artists’ collection of the Home Movies Foundation, created with the aim of reinterpreting in a contemporary key the production of some of the most significant Italian artists and filmmakers from the golden age of Super8 – and other reduced formats – presents with three film screenings the works of Mirella Bentivoglio, Gianfranco Pardi and Giovanni Rubino.

Atlas Archivio Aperto / Argentina

Atlas Archivio Aperto / Argentina

Atlas Archivio Aperto, the section dedicated to the exploration of archival cinema from other countries, pays tribute to the private memories of Argentina, with a selection of seven family films shot between the 1920s and the 1970s, preserved at the Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires.

Experimental Stories / Barbara Hammer

Experimental Stories / Barbara Hammer

Feminist and radical lesbian, Barbara Hammer is a true icon of militant experimental cinema. Archivio Aperto 2023 dedicates to her the retrospective Experimental Stories about the filmmakers who made history in avant-garde cinema.

HomeMovies100 – A film a year (1924-1989)

HomeMovies100 – A film a year (1924-1989)

Home Movies 100 is a multi-year project designed around the centenary of reduced-format cinema, here at Archivio Aperto through different modes of enjoyment: the Almanacco and Storie del formato ridotto.

Poetry, Diaries, Novels – Talk with Jamaica Kincaid

Poetry, Diaries, Novels – Talk with Jamaica Kincaid

Continuing in this edition is the Poetry, diaries, novels section, which each year features an encounter with a writer or novelist who, more than others, has focused on the theme of words as an investigation of personal histories intertwined with collective history. This year’s invitation went to Antigua-born American author Jamaica Kincaid, among the finest and most powerful writers on the contemporary scene, who on the occasion of Archivio Aperto returns to Italy after ten years.

Special events

Special events

The festival’s special events section pays tribute to Fiona Tan with the Italian premiere screening of Dearest Fiona accompanied by an artist talk, and Risonanze della memoria, a meeting with Sara Poma and Sofia Borri from the podcast Figlie.

Workshops

Archive Lovers

For its second consecutive year, Archivio Aperto 2023 proposes Archive Lovers, a series of programs addressed to those who wish to learn about or explore archival practices related to private, amateur, and experimental cinema.

Hidden Gardens – Bologna in 16mm

On the occasion of Home Movie Day 2023, the Home Movies Foundation and Officina Fotografica Shado are launching a Bolex 16mm shooting and B&W invertible development workshop to be held in Bologna, Italy on October 20, 21 and 22.

Soundtracking of archive images and films workshop

Archivio Aperto launches the second edition of a workshop dedicated to the soundtracking of archival images, private images and family films, with a call open to musicians, producers, sound designers, music workers, filmmakers, and editors.

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