2. When nosarchives was born…
I'm Manuel Kleidman, co-founder of
Nosarchives, an archive of home movie and
director of the collections. The social impact
on the community of the amatorial movie:
this is what I will tell you about today; but
first it begins with an advice: to remember
that you surely have at home some family
movies and not to forget them, they have an
impact on society and bring a lot of
activities: cerebral, emotional, social and
commercial . “L’oubli c’est l’exil et la
memoire c’est la liberté”, to forget is the
exile and memory is liberty.
The one who said that knew what was
the value of time. To find back this
value, the serenity of what remain of the
past, this is what we like. Don’t we visit
first the old city when we arrive
somewhere, in a foreign country? To
see old stones and ancient customs? It
is bringing us some peace and a warm
feeling of a déjà-vu, a feeling of
security.
And it’s for that human peculiarity that
we are here today.
3. Zizi & Defaye – Leloir & Opera de Pékin
Nosarchives was born three years ago. We
had, my wife and I, done a documentary "The
Alhambra of Jane", about the music hall of my
grandmother in Paris, both vanished today. To
build this movie we were obliged to look for
films, and the best we found were in my family,
in the movies of my father from the 50’s and
60’s. They were all in colour 8 mm, something
you couldn't find in the official archive of this
time. Zizi Jeammaire and her truc en plume
(the tail of feathers), produced by my
grandmother, was pinkish and was suddenly
gorgeous; the opera of Pekin was alive again
with the pictures of the photographer Leloir and
the movies of my father. When we made the
account of our expenses, we found out how
much we saved by using the movies of my
father! And how much we really spend buying
officials archives footage.
We understood how much we would gain by
selling our images. Why not giving this
opportunity to the others and give them back
their author-rights? To transform this material in
a commercial material and transform the
common people in creators and authors? And
that’s what we did. With the help of the lawyer
Hubert Best who wrote for us the contract and
who believes in our work, we actually convinced
many families to join us.
For sure we are all crossing our fingers to wait
for buyers but it is far better than to forget these
reels in an old house or throwing them in a
garbage or in a flee market.
4. The aim of these reels and their goals
These reels where done to be shown and
there is no reason not to show them finally.
We are giving back to the world what we
had at home, image of the world as it was.
Marvellous trips , old customs, vanished
villages, but overall: smiles, happiness,
innocence.
It’s an idealisation of your own life, of what
you want to leave to your family, an image
of the best of you. Well arranged. I will call
them "The long chain of golden summers"
You will discover how much women have a
different way than men to look at things and
how the protagonists are, most of the time,
behaving absolutely not naturally under the
eye of this camera.
And in fact, the observer is part of the
observation and influence enormously the
protagonist.
So you will tell where is the real life in
these movies? If in every second I choose
to shoot or not, freely with my own liberty
what is the best for me! Anyway these
reels have a language identical all over the
world, an intimate, sentimental and
emotional scripture. A poetry.
5. Social Impact
We arrived in a countryside with no audio-visual
production or any related business company, any
experience on cinema, to scanning, cleaning,
restoration, etc...
When we built the archive in this small city we bet at
it, and we began to form youth. We couldn’t imagine
that in three years we’ll become company general
managers, teenagers teachers, tutors for young
employed, organisers of night for elders, school of
cinema for kids, festival founders…and detectives,
how?
You know how much work could bring these 24
image a second little three minutes dusty reel ?
Here is a reel. We archive it, number and describe it,
then we clean and digitise it in high definition, a work
already taught by our old trainee to the younger.
We are sending registered letters to the address
decrypted (an important legal point), and the trainees
call the heirs and trying to convince them to find back
memories about these forgotten moments, precisely.
And finally to sign a contract.
We have actually agreements with three important
Italian universities like IED, Louis, La Sapienza and with
high schools.
They give us, as in the last year, 35 girls and boys, who
learned how to make investigation, how to describe film
footage on the archive database with the help of the
authors or their heir, and to build a very short
documentary about the author.
Then the students spread this information on Facebook
and Twitter. What a victory!
But as for the trainees, our archive attracts many
professional of cinema and archiving, asking for a
participation or a job. This demand a budget.
8. We are also trying to tell the people how
these films are made: what is the material, the
cameras, how we shot a movie reel, how to
cut and to edit; it is a real discovery for them
how much this material has been forgotten in
our days; for example we did some stage with
little children of 3-4 years old. After the
lesson, they bring at home a 20 cm piece of
celluloid full of minuscle images, and keep it
as a jewel!
We taught to the students of Bracciano
highschool how to develop marketing of film
collection, spread on the social network, to
release press review about the most
important authors in our archive, to manage
the organization of the Festival and looking for
sponsors.
.
When we organise one with a competition last
september, “Il Gusto Della Memoria", was a
first. Means, to build movies directly from our
web site with our motor of research! It has
been a real success!
Images of my mother and father, my friends
and myself have been used in a science
fiction, or a documentary.
During this festival we reunify families, we
bring back people to see each other 60 years
later. For example an old fiction, "Simenon",
has been remasterised and the actors
crossed the sea to meet in Bracciano and
look at it for the second time in their life.
What an emotion, for Socrate, this amateur
movie-maker, in front of our president of the
jury Gianni Amelio, Leone d’Oro in Venezia!
9. FESTIVAL 2014
The future edition of our festival, in 2014 is
already advertised. We propose three
international competitions: one for children from
7 to 14 years old , one for the young from 15 to
18 and one for the adults. The subject for the
young (little and big) will be biography and
autobiography: the children will discover
images which are not at all their own memory
and will have to build a biography.
For the adult, the subjects will be about the
evolution of human conscious: I was once a
carnivore...and much more, or Stranger...and
much more. What was in fact sranger to us?
How did our conscious have evoluted? We have
to look at our past behaving to bring our
conscious higher than ever. How human being
with compassion and understanding will respect
more and more our earth and all the living
species?
11. Bracciano Plays
Now our local social events.
We already found from different families
almost three thousands movies only in
the little town we are settled. The archive
own actually eighteen thousand movies.
We organize meetings with the elders,
old protagonist or witnesses, we show
them the movies, taking notes of their
appreciation and enjoying with them
these flashes of memory, recognising old
friends, old vanished houses and so on...
This definitely help the descriptions!
We organised with them the festival
"Bracciano Plays", in which they bring
their old games (from the pre-electronic
era!), and teach the children in the street
how to play. A projection of their old
family movies illustrates the lessons.
We are also trying to tell the people how
these films are made: what is the
material, the cameras, how we shot a
movie reel, how to cut and to edit; it is a
real discovery for them how much this
material has been forgotten in our days;
for example we did some stage with little
children of 3-4 years old. After the
lesson, they bring at home a 20 cm piece
of celluloid full of minuscle images, and
keep it as a jewel!
13. Money!
Money is a direct kind of social impact. In the
competition festival for example, considering that
we are coproducing the movies of the winners,
the income for them and for the authors of the
material used is available again. What an
opportunity for these amateur creators who
believed in us and for the families who brought us
their home-movies!
The social impact is also psychological and very
positive. People trusting us have definitely liberate
themselves from their private past, which is not
anymore intimate but shared now. From mouth to
ear they advertise our archive with their memory,
which comes from a close neighbourhood or from
the other part of the world.
By revealing again these images, they make
contact between them, something they were not
doing anymore. And by the interest we demonstrate
toward them, and the potential income we bring
them, speaking to each other, they find out how
much their images became suddenly
cinematographic, and how their grand father or
ancestor became suddenly a useful movie maker.
Their family name is on an official fund and it gets
out suddenly from anonymity. It’s a deep source of
pride and very healthy. And it convinces us to go
on.
14. OURS
DETECTIVES
• VALENTINA &
MARIA
• 17 years old
The social impact in a world perspective
Last but not least. The investigation will remain the problem. What
about the orphan reel, for example? I mean a reel without author.
When we find orphans reels we are also in trouble legally. We have
to obey to what is called the good faith (we have done all what we
could to find the original author), and the investigation brings us
sometimes nowhere.
I hope to develop with the Fiat Ifta world members, a project: to
build a right investigation portal to find back authors and heirs
and to give them back their forgotten past and their rights.
The protagonists
What is important is to give to Nosarchives a capacity of an
ethnographic tool without frontiers and turned to the forgotten
protagonists. We give back the image belonging to whom it
belongs! Means: the pigmei, the bedouin, the merchants of the suk,
the chief of the tribe, the child of the jungle, the horse rider of the
toundra , a crowd in Venice or a group of children in vacation
etc...etc.. It’s also for them that we build Nosarchives! No matter
how old they are, where they are today, in the same tiny and lost
place, or in a big foreign city, They have this privilege with
Nosarchives to see again, or show to others, the place were they
born. A real image of their roots. And the question is: once only
objects and now main subjects, how will we reach them (or their
descendant) and how they will reach us? To reach this aim we
should open Nosarchives, freely, to the world.
15. THE CREATION OF THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA
I want you to realize that the moment you bring
to light this movie again and sign a contract with
author, heirs or protagonist: its for life.
I mean you are part of, and building here, the
foundation of the Home-Movie Universal
Encyclopaedia of the 20th century.
The moment you build the right investigation
portal (par. 6) you can dream parallely about the
creation of the 20th century universal
encyclopaedia of home movies. For, this portal
is its essential and legal guardian.
So my last word will be for people who believes
that its time for it.
That’s will be a real social impact on the
communities in a world perspective, a personal
and intimate universal encyclopaedia, a
beautiful secret revealed, a marvellous
encyclopaedia.
