Thanks to Union Docs for its interest in orphan films and symposing on same. Quixotic? No doubt.
Some call it Jay-Diff....
ORPHANAGE
An orphan film is one that no longer officially belongs to any individual or corporate entity. This intriguing event – Installation? Exhibition? – will put a number of the oddest orphan films before visitors to a specially designed space at Cultivate on Saint Andrews Street. Savour such curious delights as a Turkish Wizard of Oz and a North Korean Godzilla. Cultivate at The Greenhouse, St Andrews Street, runs throughout festival.
An ‘orphan film’ is any motion picture that has been abandoned by its owner or caretaker. Usually, the term refers to all manner of films outside of the commercial mainstream: public domain materials, home movies, outtakes, alternate endings, undeveloped reels, unreleased material, industrial, medical and educational movies, CCTV footage, just about anything that’s unloved, unwanted or forgotten. To celebrate these parentless films, the festival will be hosting a unique installation at the Greenhouse on Andrews Street. In keeping with the Greenhouse’s green ethic – it is part of the Cultivate community – the setting will be composed entirely of recycled elements. Indeed, the Orphanage could be seen as a celebration of the possibilities of recycling. The furniture, decorations and art works that decorate the space will all be composed from found objects. Most significantly, the films themselves are, in some sense, all needlessly discarded objects. Among the delights on display will be Planet Wars, the famous (perhaps notorious) Brazilian remake of Star Wars, released just five, barely legal months after Lucas’s film hit South America.
Also have a glance at utterly hilarious Turkish takes on ET (Badi) and The Wizard of Oz (Aysecik in the Land of Magic Dwarfs). If you want something semi-respectable then visit when The Old Dark House, James Whale’s follow-up to Frankenstein, is occupying the monitor. If you’d like to witness a legendary folly then check out Pulgasari, a North Korean version of Godzilla. Shin Sang-ok, the film’s South Korean director, was famously kidnapped by Kim Jong-il and forced to do the film-mad dictator’s weird bidding. Odd.
Credits: Remakes by Evan Doherty. Space by Alan Kelly. Curated by Tara Brady. Hosted by Cultivate.
orphan film
Narrowly defined, a motion picture abandoned by its creator, owner, or caretaker, or lacking the commercial potential to assure preservation. Broadly speaking, a film outside the commercial mainstream, including public domain materials, industrial and educational films, newsreels, independent documentaries, scientific and ethnographic films, experimental films, silent-era productions, amateur works, and films of small or unusual gauge. The National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF), a charitable affiliate of the National Film Preservation Board (NFPB) of the Library of Congress, awards federally funded grants to archives for the preservation of historically, culturally, or aesthetically significant orphan films. Click here to learn more about orphan films.
Quick note the start of the two-night orphan film events at Union Docs. In Brooklyn: the L and the CBG.
http://www.thelmagazine.com/TheMeasure/archives/2010/01/22/three-questions-for-cullen-gallagher-about-the-orphan-film-symposium
Good times last January also, when Dr. Robbins Barstow's amateur film Disneyland Dream (1956) made it to the National Film Registry.
http://orphanfilmsymposium.blogspot.com/2009/01/this-is-why-we-do-what-we-do-save.html
When the Library of Congress named its annual 25 films to the National Film Registry for 2009, some of us noted that 5 of the titles were by women filmmakers. That's only 20%, but notably more than usual (e.g., zero in 2008).
But even advocates campaigning for more films by women on the Registry underestimated the number. While we could debate what screen credit one must have to be considered the maker of a film, for the moment let's use the conventional measure of director.
"UnionDocs pulls directors in the door, but also works with like-minded groups to put on events like its weekend of Orphan Films (January 23rd & 24th), a forerunner and accompaniment to an NYU Symposium on the same topic planned for April."
