In Search of a Format between the Wondrous and the Ordinary: The International Festival of Scientific and Didactic Film 1956-1975

Activity

Invited talk at the Film Studies Speaker Series

Description

This talk will analyse the case of the International Festival of Scientific and Educational Film 1956-1975 (hence IFSEF) organised by the University of Padua in collaboration with the Venice Film Festival. This festival is representative of a broader, international phenomenon of useful film festivals, which are understudied in the literature, attracting entries from around the world as scientists, entrepreneurs and educators competed to create compelling cinematic presentations of the natural and industrial world. How did the format of IFSEF, which spatialised knowledge along the two axes of wonder and evidence, challenged or reinforced epistemic boundaries between disciplines, expertise, institutions, audiences? To tackle this question, I rely on Oliver Gaycken's concept of ‘literary devices' (Gaycken 2015: 4) which includes technologies and the various contrivances (debates, structural decisions, programming choices) that, in the case of IFSEF, stimulated organizers' search for a distinctive format across the exposition lifespan. In short, to avoid fetishizing the individual films, I shall address what John Durham Peters, referring to film festivals in general, calls ‘the basic, the boring, the mundane, and all the mischievous work done behind the scenes (…) that enable communication, exchange, and contact' (Peters 2015:33). This approach can create the conditions for a better understanding of films' fruition, circulation, and afterlife once they have left their production site.

Period	1 Oct 2024
Held at	University of St Andrews, United Kingdom
Degree of Recognition	International