BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Sabre//Sabre VObject 4.5.8//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/Zurich X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/Zurich TZURL:http://tzurl.org/zoneinfo/Europe/Zurich BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0200 TZNAME:CEST DTSTART:19810329T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0200 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:CET DTSTART:19961027T030000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news708@osteuropa.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20251001T093102 DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20251003 SUMMARY:Workshop: Re-Cinefications: Decentring the Archive of Soviet Film DESCRIPTION:The program prompts to revisit cinematic approaches and media p ractices associated with Soviet film from where the latter interpolates th e present: the archive. Though often resting in the shadow of other instit utions such as movie theater or film studio\, the film archive occupies a decisive point in the chain between collective memory and imagination– –the silences and overlooked legacies. Operations of image storage and p reservation contribute to the dominant Russocentric approach in Soviet fil m studies and its masking of imperial continuities through ideological and aesthetic centralization. Within this homogenising framing\, racialized a nd extractivist perspectives on bodies and lands of Central Asia\, Transca ucasia\, and Far North remain out of grasp for both Soviet film studies an d contemporary filmmaking practices that reaffirm the respective political and aesthetic strategies. The reduction of Soviet film to its Russian leg acy also leaves aside multiple threads that extended beyond the USSR’s b orders\, to socialist and non-aligned countries in Europe\, Africa\, Asia\ , and the Americas\, through filmmaking practices informed by Soviet ‘ed ucational aid’ after WWII. In turn\, domestically\, various alternative modes of cinematic mediation faced censorship or were excluded from intern ational distribution by Soviet authorities\, and thus were left unfinished or disfigured after undergoing Moscow’s ideological and aesthetic re-ed iting. What remains of them are traces in project descriptions\, screen te sts\, or unidentified film fragments that often don’t appear in the cata logues of film archives. Tending to the margins and the invisibilities of archives\, the program highlights attempts at decentring the legacy of Sov iet filmmaking by accounting for potential developments that were disrupte d during the XX century and remain marginalized to date.\\r\\nFocusing on a continuity of abandoned potentialities in cinema\, the contributions to  Re-Cinefications: Decentring the Archive of Soviet Film enable differen tiated perspectives on the heterogeneous geographies of Soviet film. The e arly history of Soviet cinema coincides with the fall of the Russian Empir e and the subsequent establishment of local film institutions across its f ormer territories. Within the Soviet modernization project this process wa s denoted as the ‘cinefication’ of the culturally heterogeneous USSR\, in unison with electrification\, industrialization\, and collectivization . Emphasising “cinema’s relational character\,” media theorist Pavle Levi has expanded the meaning of ‘cinefication’ as establishment of m aterial infrastructure for producing and distributing films: The spread of cinema as a technical medium gradually blended human and machine percepti on––to the extent of a “general cinefication” of the visible world . Interwoven into historically particular political projects\, "the techno logies and the practices of mechanical image production and reproduction ( …) have irrevocably transformed the role of the imaginary in the social reality.”[1] A decentering approach to the archive(s) of Soviet film al lows to encounter the complex relations between the imaginary and the soci al\, which constituted the cinefied geographies of the Soviet state\, as w ell as guided past and present aspirations of social change coming from it s peripheries.\\r\\nWhich––minor and multiple–– re-cinefications can occur in the critical\, experimental\, and decentring interventions to the legacy of Soviet film? Re-Cinefications: Decentring the Archive of S oviet Film invites scholarly\, artistic\, and filmmaking practices to the dialogue about current potentialities of reclaiming the past.\\r\\nYou ca n download the detailed program here [t3://file?uid=1119].\\r\\n[1] Pavle Levi\, Cinema by Other Means (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Pres s\, 2012): 84. X-ALT-DESC:

The program prompts to revisit cinematic approaches and media practices associated with Soviet film from where the latter interpolates the present: the archive. Though often resting in the shadow of other inst itutions such as movie theater or film studio\, the film archive occupies a decisive point in the chain between collective memory and imagination– –the silences and overlooked legacies. Operations of image storage and p reservation contribute to the dominant Russocentric approach in Soviet fil m studies and its masking of imperial continuities through ideological and aesthetic centralization. Within this homogenising framing\, racialized a nd extractivist perspectives on bodies and lands of Central Asia\, Transca ucasia\, and Far North remain out of grasp for both Soviet film studies an d contemporary filmmaking practices that reaffirm the respective political and aesthetic strategies. The reduction of Soviet film to its Russian leg acy also leaves aside multiple threads that extended beyond the USSR’s b orders\, to socialist and non-aligned countries in Europe\, Africa\, Asia\ , and the Americas\, through filmmaking practices informed by Soviet ‘ed ucational aid’ after WWII. In turn\, domestically\, various alternative modes of cinematic mediation faced censorship or were excluded from intern ational distribution by Soviet authorities\, and thus were left unfinished or disfigured after undergoing Moscow’s ideological and aesthetic re-ed iting. What remains of them are traces in project descriptions\, screen te sts\, or unidentified film fragments that often don’t appear in the cata logues of film archives. Tending to the margins and the invisibilities of archives\, the program highlights attempts at decentring the legacy of Sov iet filmmaking by accounting for potential developments that were disrupte d during the XX century and remain marginalized to date.

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Focusing on a continuity of abandoned potentialities in cinema\, the contributions to \;Re-Cinefications: Decentring the Archive of Soviet Film& nbsp\;enable differentiated perspectives on the heterogeneous geographies of Soviet film. The early history of Soviet cinema coincides with the fall of the Russian Empire and the subsequent establishment of local film inst itutions across its former territories. Within the Soviet modernization pr oject this process was denoted as the ‘cinefication’ of the culturally heterogeneous USSR\, in unison with electrification\, industrialization\, and collectivization. Emphasising “cinema’s relational character\,” media theorist Pavle Levi has expanded the meaning of ‘cinefication’ as establishment of material infrastructure for producing and distributing films: The spread of cinema as a technical medium gradually blended human and machine perception––to the extent of a “general cinefication” of the visible world. Interwoven into historically particular political p rojects\, "the technologies and the practices of mechanical image producti on and reproduction (…) have irrevocably transformed the role of the ima ginary in the social reality.”[1] \;A de centering approach to the archive(s) of Soviet film allows to encounter th e complex relations between the imaginary and the social\, which constitut ed the cinefied geographies of the Soviet state\, as well as guided past a nd present aspirations of social change coming from its peripheries.

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Which––minor and multiple–– \;re-cinefications can occur in the critical\, experimental\, and decentring interventions to th e legacy of Soviet film? \;Re-Cinefications: Decentring the Archiv e of Soviet Film \;invites scholarly\, artistic\, and filmmaking practices to the dialogue about current potentialities of reclaiming the p ast.

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You can download the detailed program here.

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[1] \;Pavle Levi\, \;Cinema by Other Means \;(Oxford &a mp\; New York: Oxford University Press\, 2012): 84.

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