Moving Pictures, Controversial Memories (Cinemaf)

The goal of this project is to undertake an interdisciplinary analysis (ethnology, cinema studies, history of representations, fine arts) in collaboration with heritage partners (Quai Branly Museum, Albert-Kahn Departmental Museum, the French Cinema Archives CNC) on issues to do with analysis, remediation, and reuse of cinema materials developed in controversial historical context (colonisation in particular).

This project has three complementary components:

1. A research study focused on a film corpus on African societies for the period between 1920 and 1940, including fiction films, ethnological films, colonial propaganda films, amateur films, all found in public or private collections;
2. Testing new research protocols and different forms of dialogue around these objects with the descendants of the populations who were filmed, along with researchers, and artists in the African countries concerned;
3. The establishment of a space for comparison between different contexts of appropriation of this kind of material to pursue in-depth reflection on the film corpus on Africa, compared with other regions of the world (the Amazon, the Pacific, Siberia, etc.) where the history of remediation practices is different and older still.