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- 34 - Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management
- Submitting institution
- De Montfort University
- Unit of assessment
- 34 - Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management
- Summary impact type
- Cultural
- Is this case study continued from a case study submitted in 2014?
- No
1. Summary of the impact
Porter’s research has transformed the appreciation and understanding of British silent cinema among the public, film industry leaders and cinema historians. Through public screenings at the British Silent Film Festival (BSFF), she has created an appreciation of this previously undervalued period of cinema history. Her research has informed the British Film Institute’s (BFI) programme of digitisation for heritage films and contributed to the preservation of specialist skills in exhibiting analogue archive film. Her research has raised the prestige of British silent cinema by contributing to UK and international film festivals and its outreach programme has supported community organisations and specialist cinemas. Since 2014, 6,849 people have experienced 1,210 rare and previously unseen silent films at 102 separate events.
2. Underpinning research
With the transition from silent cinema to the ‘talkies’ in the late 1920s, British silent cinema, already struggling to compete with glossier Hollywood productions, faced demise. Many British producers collapsed and their back catalogues were lost. Porter’s research has three strands: (1) primary archival research to rediscover British films, (2) research on the musical scores that accompany silent films and (3) an exploration of the cultural impact of the transition to sound.
Porter’s primary research with national and international film archives has unearthed hundreds of forgotten British films. She has been instrumental in rediscovering 227 feature films and 983 shorts, many of which had not been seen publicly since the 1920s nor featured in scholarly histories of British cinema. For example, her archival research in collaboration with the Gosfilmofond Collection (Moscow) in 2015, resulted in the discovery of a missing-believed-lost early Hitchcock collaboration, Three Live Ghosts (1922), which had lain hidden in the Soviet archive since the 1920s. A critical part of Porter’s archival research is working with the BFI National Archive at Berkhamsted, tracing and checking film prints and tracking the rights holders. This work has resulted in rediscovered films being screened in public for the first time in decades including early British musicals City of Song (1931) , Tell Me Tonight (1933), silent Crimean War drama Balaclava (1928) previously held only on flammable nitrate and the lost melodrama The Puppet Man (1920) [C5].
Her primary research [R3, R2] has challenged existing orthodoxies on the quality and artistic merit of British silent cinema. Music was essential to the cinematic experience, but there were few original music scores composed for silent film. Porter researched the music that would have originally been used by musicians to extemporise using collections from the Light Music Society, the Royal College of Music and Birmingham Public Library. Working in close collaboration with musicians like Neil Brand, Porter was able to present silent films with musical scores based on these original styles and compositions. Her research with Brand has resulted in a major donation of silent cinema sheet music from the Light Music Society, currently being catalogued for public access with the University of Bristol.
Porter’s cultural and social research of silent cinema and the transition to sound was funded by a GBP466,668 AHRC grant (2014–2018). Applying a feminist critique, her research revealed the hidden histories of women working in below-the-line roles, usually uncredited. Her analysis of personal testimony from the Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatre Union History Project and historical records of the Musicians’ Union and Royal College of Music on the work of female scriptwriters and musicians repositions our understanding of gender in British silent cinema. Here research reveals that the rise of the talkies had a disproportionate impact on women, removing employment opportunities for female musicians [R1] but more fundamentally contributing to the marginalisation of female characters on film, as the male voice became dominant. The female voice was subject to scrutiny and criticism and the careers of many female silent film stars chosen primarily for their glamorous looks did not survive the transition to sound [R4, R5].
These three strands of Porter’s research come together in the BSFF which she has organised since 1998. Since joining DMU in 2009, Porter’s research is intimately intertwined with the festival, informing the film programming, curatorial strategies and the re-presentation of silent films to audiences.
3. References to the research
Porter’s published research indicates the interdisciplinary nature of her work, embracing music history, studies in the human voice, the development of sound technology and film criticism refracted through a feminist perspective on British cinema history. The Routledge collection [R2, R3] is a major volume of revisionist British cinema history in the high-profile Routledge ‘Companion’ series. The peer-reviewed journal articles [R1, R4, R5, R6] are all in leading publications in their respective spheres.
[R1] Porter, L. (2017) ‘The “missing muscle”: attitudes to women working in cinema and music 1910–1930’, Journal of Popular Music and Society, 40(5): 499–517; https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2017.1348669
[R2] Porter, L. (2017) ‘ “Temporary American citizens”: British cinema in the 1920s’, in I.Q. Hunter, L. Porter and J. Smith (eds) The Routledge Companion to British Cinema, Abingdon: Routledge, pp 34–46; ISBN 9781315392189
[R3] Porter, L. (2017) ‘The talkies come to Britain: British silent cinema and the transition to sound, 1928–30’, in I.Q. Hunter, L. Porter and J. Smith (eds) The Routledge Companion to British Cinema, Abingdon: Routledge, pp 87–98; ISBN 9781315392189
[R4] Porter, L. (2018) ‘ “Have you a happy voice?” Women’s voices and the talkie revolution in Britain 1929–1932’, Music, Sound and the Moving Image, 12(2): 141–169; https://doi.org/10.3828/msmi.2018.9
[R5] Porter, L. (2020) ‘ “The film gone male”: women and the transition to sound in the British film industry 1929–1932’, Women’s History Review, 29(5): 766–783; https://doi.org/10.1080/09612025.2019.1703534
[R6] Porter, L. (2020) ‘ “Okay for sound?” The reception of the early talkies in Britain, 1928–32’, Journal of British Cinema and Television, 17(2): 212–232; https://doi.org/10.3366/jbctv.2020.0520
Grants
[G1] AHRC: GBP466,668, ‘British Silent Cinema and the Transition to Sound: 1927–1933’ (2014–2018), PI: Porter, L. (This grant included GBP24,000 towards regional and national tours of BSFF events across the UK.)
[G2] Three BFI National Lottery Audience Awards for BSFF: totalling GBP40,700 (2015, 2017, 2019).
4. Details of the impact
Porter’s research has prompted a re-evaluation of British silent cinema, long ignored or dismissed by cinema historians as inferior to Hollywood and European cinema. Through Porter’s organisation of the BSFF and its outreach programme, domestic and international audiences have discovered and enjoyed silent cinema as it was originally intended.
(1) TRANSFORMING APPRECIATION AND UNDERSTANDING OF BRITISH SILENT CINEMA
Since 2014, the BSFF has generated audiences of 6,849 [C1]. Porter’s research has enabled cinema screenings of silent films that create an audience experience matching the original with live music and accurate projection, setting new standards for the exhibition of British silent films. Audiences have enjoyed classics such as Jane Shore (1915), a forgotten Richard III–themed film at Leicester Cathedral in September 2015 and Metropolis (1927) at St Mary de Castro Church in March 2017 where audiences witnessed a silent film with a live church organ.
Porter’s work has transformed public understanding of Britain’s cinema heritage. Qualitative research of 86 participants in 2017 indicated that 80% had their views about silent cinema changed favourably, and 100% would now recommend silent films to others [C2]. A BSFF attendee and musician explains how it has changed his view:
The British Silent Film Festival has transformed the way we understand British silent cinema. I have attended almost all of the British Silent Film Festivals since its inception, and it’s been an incredible education, and I can safely say that it’s transformed the way myself and many other people have understood British silent cinema. The format of the festival, with lectures and screenings gives fantastic depth to it – very often the lectures will open up new ways of seeing and understanding the films. [C2]
In a survey of 328 audience members conducted at the 2019 BSFF, 99% stated that they would see more silent films as a result of attending the festival; of these, 23% were first time or infrequent attendees, indicating that Porter’s work is also growing audiences for silent cinema [C2].
The curator of silent film at the BFI acknowledges the important contribution that Porter’s research has made to its digitisation of film heritage:
The BFI’s own databases and well-used public online platforms such as BFI Player have benefited from knowledge accrued at the British Silent Film Festival by helping establish credits (which are often missing) for unidentified material and supplying contextual information. Films that have played well with audiences at the festival have gone on to be programmed at the BFI’s own venues and online platforms, elevated for restoration projects, published on DVD/BluRay and distributed worldwide. [C3]
(2) CONTRIBUTING TO UK AND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVALS
Porter’s research has directly influenced the programming of Scotland’s HippFest silent film festival (founded in 2011) by enabling them to showcase films rediscovered at the BSFF. Further, she directly contributed her research by delivering public lectures in 2014, 2016 and 2019. HippFest’s founding director explains how Porter’s research has shaped their festival:
Over the years the BSFF has been a must-do in my diary as an essential part of my research and development for the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival. The specialised programme content is unique in the UK and, as such, represents a singularly useful concentration of material to help inform my own programming. [C7]
Porter’s research has resulted in rediscovered British films touring to international festivals including the world’s oldest and largest silent film festival le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone, Italy. The festival’s director says:
For decades, the work of all but a few British directors in the 1910s and ’20s had been routinely dismissed, largely because their films were inaccessible, yet it’s thanks to the British Silent Film Festival’s vision and determination that this inaccurate assessment has been fundamentally changed … and it’s due to the festival organizers’ ground-breaking curatorship that we at Pordenone were able to introduce international audiences to the riches of British silent cinema to a far greater degree than had been possible beforehand… This surely is the main goal for any organization involved in drawing attention to the riches housed in the world’s archives? [C8]
(3) SUPPORTING COMMUNITY ORGANISATIONS AND SPECIALIST CINEMAS
Leicester’s independent Phoenix Cinema, home of BSFF, has benefited financially and technically from the partnership. The BSFF has contributed over GBP18,000 to the Cinema since 2014 and attracts an average of 81 people per screening, against an average of 37 to their regular programme [C4]. BSFF contributes technical expertise to ensure the Phoenix meets high standards set by the International Federation of Film Archives to exhibit analogue archive film, an area where digital technology has caused acute deskilling. The Phoenix is now one of the few regional cinemas in the UK able to meet these standards and provides skill-sharing to other organisations.
Head of Cinema at Phoenix explains the significance of the BSFF for the cinema:
Since the first edition at the new Phoenix in 2010, the British Silent Film Festival has continued to be a hugely important part of our programme. … it is our mission to open up the whole of film history to our audience and the festival is a brilliant access point; … [it] has helped to raise the profile and audience numbers of other archive work we do, from being one of the few cinemas still able to screen 35mm prints, to renewing and increasing our commitment to presenting local history reels from 16mm. [C6]
Porter has also delivered 24 separate screenings across 18 different community venues in Leicestershire, Rutland, Scotland and the Scottish Highlands and Islands [C1].
5. Sources to corroborate the impact
[C1] Audience attendee numbers.
[C2] 2014–2019 audience survey data – Excel spreadsheet available on request.
[C3] Email from Curator of Silent Film at the BFI.
[C4] Phoenix Cinema annual report 2017/18; https://www.phoenix.org.uk//content/uploads/2018/12/Phoenix\-Annual\-Report\-2017\-18\-WEB.pdf
[C5] 2019 BSFF brochure; https://britishsilentfilmfestival.com/2019\-brochure/
[C6] Email from Head of Cinema at Phoenix Cinema.
[C7] Email from Founding Director of Hippodrome Silent Film Festival.
[C8] Letter from the Director of le Giornate del Cinema Muto silent film festival, Pordenone, Italy.
- Submitting institution
- De Montfort University
- Unit of assessment
- 34 - Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management
- Summary impact type
- Cultural
- Is this case study continued from a case study submitted in 2014?
- No
1. Summary of the impact
Acciari’s work has had cultural impact on the South Asian communities in Leicester by mounting community screenings and attracting the UK Asian Film Festival annually since 2017. Held at the Phoenix Cinema, the Festival boosted audiences for Indian films across its regular programme, too. This impact on local and national film organisations extended to an exhibition, ‘Restoring India’, resulting in a major archival loan to DMU by London’s Cinema Museum. International educational impact has come from a new Film Festivals course Acciari facilitated at the English and Foreign Languages University (EFL-U), Hyderabad, India, where she established the Kinaara Student Film Festival.
2. Underpinning research
While Film Festival Studies is now well established, little attention has been paid to the emergence of Indian film festivals within the South Asian subcontinent and their spread elsewhere [R1]. Acciari’s historical research charted this emerging, diasporic identity of Indian film festival culture [R2, R3]. Her work has advanced two important strands: (1) the study of film festival programming built on community-based methods and (2) the recognition of South Asian film festivals as spatial, temporal and transnational ‘archives’ of Indian culture that shape and express national identity [R2]. Acciari’s approach uses local screenings as a tool to investigate the film tastes of the community. This method makes festival programming a collaborative process that is tailored to attract an audience demographic previously under-represented; in this sense it is co-creative. She demonstrates how Indian film curatorship, via community screenings and film festivals, is not merely guided by aesthetic paradigms [R4], but also by sociopolitical and cultural forces rooted in social aspirations, migration, new settlement and the tension between tradition and modernity [R3].
Acciari’s research revealed that film curatorship, in partnership with sponsors and audiences, is: (1) a community-driven method to cater for diverse audiences and expand film tastes and knowledge [R3, R1] and (2) a social practice to establish film festivals as liberal spaces to debate socially challenging themes [R2]. Festivals are a means for audiences to explore and interrogate identities [R4]. They may be considered aspirational for audiences since curated film programmes can, for example, unsettle normalised social discourses of gender and sexuality, and open minds to new ideas.
Expanding on the notion of foreignness in Indian cinema [R4] allowed the appraisal of Indian film circulation abroad as affected by translational practices. Acciari’s OWRI/AHRC funded project explored how Bollywood cinema benefits from an infrastructure that supports appropriate subtitling for international distribution, while independent productions lack the same support. Subtitling independent productions is often an overlooked, low-cost practice that affects the quality and range of the films disseminated at festivals, inevitably jeopardising their endeavour to be means for cultural transformation (https://www.creativeml.ox.ac.uk/blog/exploring\-multilingualism/creative\-multilingualism\-owri\-funded\-projects\).
In 2017, Acciari curated the exhibition ‘Restoring India’ at the Leicester Heritage Centre to commemorate the 70th anniversary of partition. Its success facilitated the long-term loan of the Indian cinema collection from the Cinema Museum in London, now held at DMU. The collection is crucial to investigating archives as resources to reimagine Indian film culture through revisionist history. The practices of curating Indian cinema at festivals and through archives [R1] – in India and across the diaspora – are essential to understanding its cultural value for socially aspirational practices that engage and contest implicit sociopolitical and historical positions [R2].
The development of a community-driven curatorial method resulted in an international workshop with Dr Hrishikesh Ingle on Film Festivals in South Asia that took place in October 2017 at EFL-U. This workshop produced a co-edited journal special issue that charted how Indian cinema festivals, internationally, have become loci to showcase distinctive intellectual, spatial and temporal connotations of a changing nation [R3, R6].
3. References to the research
The key papers reporting the research were published in international research journals recognised as having particularly high standards of peer review. R2 and R3 were republished in high-profile Routledge collections. Studies in South Asian Film and Media (Intellect), who published Acciari’s article [R1] in a special issue she co-edited [R6], is one of the most prominent new journals in the field and states on its website, ‘This peer-reviewed publication is committed to looking at the media and cinemas of the Indian subcontinent in their social, political, economic, historical, and increasingly globalized and diasporic contexts’ (https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/intellect/safm/latest\). As a result of scholarly attention to R3, Acciari devised a network project funded by OWRI/AHRC: ‘Multilingual Euro-Bollywood: An ‘Imaginative-Language’ Workshop’.
[R1] Acciari, M. (2014) ‘Film festival and the rhythm of social inclusivity: the fluid spaces of London Indian Film Festival and Florence Indian Film Festival’, Cinergie, 3(2): 14–25; https://cinergie.unibo.it/article/download/6993/6727
Journal article that underwent double-blind peer-review process.
[R2] Acciari, M. (2019) ‘The permanency of film festivals: archiving the changing India’, Studies in South Asian Film and Media, 10(1): 41–57; https://doi.org/10.1386/safm\_00004\_1
Journal article that underwent double-blind peer-review process.
[R3] Acciari, M. (2017) ‘Film festivals as cosmopolitan assemblage: a case study in diasporic cocreation’, Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 14: 111–125; http://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue14/ArticleAcciari.pdf
Journal article that underwent double-blind peer review, and was reprinted in the edited book: Devasundaram, A.I. (ed.) (2018) Indian Cinema Beyond Bollywood, Abingdon: Routledge, pp 100–116; ISBN 9780815368601
[R4] Acciari, M. (2017–2019), delivery of five public events (film festivals) in UK and India: UK Asian Film Festival (Leicester 2017, 2018 and 2019); Kinaara Student Film Festival, Hyderabad, India (8–10 November 2019); UK Asian Film Festival (Leicester 2020)* This festival was due to take place at the beginning of April 2020. However, it could not take place due to Covid-19.
[R5] Acciari, M. (2017) ‘Bollywood’s variation on the firanginess theme: song-and-dance sequences as heterotopic offbeats’, South Asian Popular Culture, 15(2/3): 173–187; https://doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2017.1407532
This journal article emerged from a colloquium to which Acciari was invited as one of nine speakers at Sonoma State University in April 2017. This article underwent a double-blind peer-review process. The article was republished in the edited book: Gehlawat, A. and Dudrah, R. (eds) (2020) The Evolution of Song and Dance in Hindi Cinema, New York: Routledge, pp 76–90; ISBN 9780367335601
[R6] Acciari, M. and Ingle, H. (eds) (2019) ‘Film festivals in South Asia’, Studies in South Asian Film and Media, 10(1); https://www.academia.edu/43660694/Editorial\_Monia\_and\_Hrishikesh
Edited journal. The journal includes [R1], the editorial, which was co-authored with Hrishikesh Ingle, and two original interviews, one is co-authored with Gauri Nori and the second is co-authored with Hrishikesh Ingle. The special issue underwent the double-blind peer-review process.
4. Details of the impact
Acciari’s research on film festival curatorship and community participation was applied to activities resulting in three kinds of impact.
(1) CULTURAL IMPACT ON THE SOUTH ASIAN COMMUNITIES IN LEICESTER
Acciari’s three public screenings in the Belgrave Community Centre attracted audiences of 196 people. The Indian films shown, Queen, Bey Yaar and English Vinglish, revived memories of cinemas long-since closed, and introduced contemporary Indian films [C1, C2]. Typically, audiences commented: ‘very relevant, thought provoking, look forward to more’ [C1]. A prominent Leicester city councillor stated: ‘With the community screenings Dr Acciari reawakened the cinemagoing culture of the South Asian community in Leicester, celebrating diversity and contributing to their inclusion within the city’ [C3]. Subsequently, in 2017, Acciari facilitated the establishment of the UK Asian Film Festival in the city as an annual event. The UKAFF was praised by the Leicester magazine Anara for championing: ‘films that explore important topics relevant to the current social and political climate, while giving unique insights and perspectives from the subcontinent’ [C4]. A three-day event in 2017 featured 7 films; the following year UKAFF programmed 8 films across two weeks, with a consistent attendance exceeding 400 participants. Following the success of the first festival, 96.88% of respondents wanted to see more South Asian film screenings [C1]. Data showed the festival attracted audiences reflecting Leicester’s diversity: 60 British Asian, 20 Indian, 10 Pakistani and 1 Bangladeshi (2017); 60 British Asian, 18 Indian, 15 Pakistani, 2 Bangladeshi (2018).
(2) IMPACT ON LOCAL AND NATIONAL FILM ORGANISATIONS
Acciari’s involvement in developing curatorial partnerships with UKAFF promoters Tongues on Fire (ToF), Phizzical and the Phoenix Cinema, has had an impact on the audience profiles of these organisations. Phizzical and ToF said that the Festival ‘strengthened our mission of ensuring access to diverse content and widening our audience’ [C5], and ‘The curatorship of a selection of films from South Asia, for the Leicester Audience, allowed us to reach communities otherwise forgotten by the local programming’ [C6]. The Phoenix said: ‘By working with Phizzical, Dr Monia Acciari and Tongues on Fire’, the UKAFF has influenced the cinema to strengthen ‘our ethos … to build a more diverse audience,’ among Leicester’s South Asian communities [C7]. Thereafter, Phizzical began a steady collaboration with the Phoenix Cinema by hosting regular programmes of Indian films [C6, C5, C8] outside the festival season. The UKAFF’s success prompted the cinema ‘to increase the quality and quantity of South Asian cinema related events’ in its calendar [C2], according to its programmer. Since 2017, Phoenix has increased the number of dedicated South Asian film events from two (between 2015 and 2017) to six (between 2017 and 2020) [C7].
The revitalisation of South Asian cinema in Leicester led Acciari to mount a short pop-up exhibition of the Cinema Museum’s Indian cinema marketing memorabilia at DMU’s Leicester Heritage Centre, attended by 22 people, in 2018. The impact was significant beyond the numbers in two ways. First, it triggered interest in the artefacts; one attendee wrote: ‘I would like to know more about the Glass Picture. Very Nice’ [C1]. Second, the Cinema Museum agreed to loan its entire collection to DMU to increase its regional footprint. They reported: ‘This collaboration allows the collection to be developed into additional and larger exhibitions; it allows the collection to travel further afield than just London; it allows the Museum to reach out to a wider diversity of audience’ [C8].
(3) INTERNATIONAL EDUCATIONAL IMPACT
The practical module on Film Festival Studies that Acciari was invited to develop at EFL-U in Hyderabad, India, between July and November 2019, delivered a new free event called Kinaara Student Film Festival, attended by over 70 participants, both students and the general public [C1]. A student stated to the local media that: ‘Kinaara attempts to take a step forward and disturb the calm of ignorant waters’. Kinaara aided the students to become curators of a programme of films that included socially challenging subjects. Another student stated: ‘Our objective in organizing this festival was to provide a voice to those in the margins, and a platform for discussion and enlightenment, to include and explore identities and stories that normally would not be in the spotlight.’ As a result of the practical experience gained on the module, an assessed portfolio enabled one student to find a position within a regional film festival [C9]. The module inspired the Department of Film Studies in enhancing employment opportunities for students [C10] by ‘including practice-based courses on film curatorship and live events at EFL-U to update our current provision’ [C10].
5. Sources to corroborate the impact
[C1] Feedback Forms Report and Ethnicity Stats.
[C2] www.buildingaudiences.org.uk; website set up at the beginning of the project which collects visual evidences of the events that took place in the UK and India.
[C3] Testimonial by Leicester City Councillor Rita Patel.
[C4] https://www.anarapublishing.com/anara\-publishing\-leicester\-asian\-film\-festival/; online article on the success of the UK Asian Film Festival in Leicester.
[C5] Testimonial from Phizzical.
[C6] Testimonial from Tongues on Fire.
[C7] Phoenix Cinema: testimonial and list of South Asian curated events following the first UKAFF in 2017.
[C8] Testimonial from the Cinema Museum.
[C9] Testimonial from EFL-U students.
[C10] Testimonial from Dr Hariprasad Athanickal, the English and Foreign Languages University.