Curated by Paolo Simoni
Twentieth-century home movies are documents imbued with history. They contain information and, above all, “clues, signs and traces”—beginning with the very material they are made of: film stock, which comes under scrutiny when an amateur film enters an archive. Its medium and format connect us to cultural, technological and social contexts. Further investigation reveals a window onto the world from which the images emerged.
Our questioning draws both on fragile, emotional oral memories—prompted and carried by the images themselves—and on research that helps us explore, verify and formulate hypotheses. The lessons of microhistory teach us to take up these obsolete objects and build a discourse and a story around them: one that starts from our own point of view, our place in the world and the questions we ask of the past today. So that the past is not all that remains to us.
This section aims to bring historical narratives to life through the private-film collection held by the National Home Movie Archive. Since its beginnings, Fondazione Home Movies has pursued this goal by continually renewing its methods and taking a multidisciplinary approach.
The 19th edition of Archivio Aperto presents the screening event Doppio Sguardo. Spartaco Scarpellini, a project by Fondazione Home Movies in collaboration with Fondazione MEI – Museo Nazionale dell’Emigrazione Italiana, Kiné, the Municipality of Bellaria and the Sguardi in camera Association. With support from DGCA, Italian Ministry of Culture, and Emilia-Romagna Film Commission.
