Amateurfilmklubs: Historische Motivationen und Methoden
- Submitting institution
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Ravensbourne University London
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- RS05
- Type
- C - Chapter in book
- DOI
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- Book title
- Abenteuer Alltag: Zur Archäologie des Amateurfilms
- Publisher
- Synema
- ISBN
- 9783901644634
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2015
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
-
- Research group(s)
-
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This was an invited contribution following a presentation at a two-day conference in 2013.
The research question was: what role and function did cine clubs serve in the development of the organized amateur film sector?
Dr. Siegfried Mattl (Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for History and Society) invited me to present a paper at an international conference in Vienna. Dr. Mattl was the principal investigator of the Amateur Film Archaeology project, funded by the Austrian Science Fund. My presentation focused on a comparative analysis of films made by individual amateur filmmakers and cine clubs.
When turning this presentation into a book chapter, I chose to focus on the cine clubs, as their contribution to the amateur sector has been relatively overlooked by scholars. This chapter examines cine clubs through two perspectives; a historical account of their development, and a close analysis of two films made to promote the joining of cine clubs.
This chapter refutes the ideologically inferred idea of a clear-cut division between home movies as a domain for artistic freedom and expression, and organized amateur filmmakers as emulators of the commercial filmmaking model. Instead I argue that amateur film clubs reproduced the social structures and group formations of other professional institutions that relied on hierarchies based on knowledge and experience. Professor Yvonne Zimmermann commented on the novelty of this approach in her review of this book, which was published in Screen (Oxford University Press, Spring 2017).
Professor Zimmermann invited me to present a paper on research methods for the study of amateur cinema, at a workshop held at Philipps University of Marburg, in May 2018.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- Yes
- English abstract
- This chapter titled, ‘Accounting for Amateur Cine Clubs: Understanding Historical Motivations and Methods’ was written in English and translated into German by the Amateur Film Archaeology project team. In English, the edited collection is called Adventure Everyday Life: An Archaeology of Amateur Film. It was published by the Austrian Film Museum under the imprint FilmmuseumSynemaPublikationen, as part of a series of books on film history and theory, which are jointly edited by SYNEMA - Society for Film and Media. The book is available to international readers through a distribution arrangement with Columbia University Press.