̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Annamaria Motrescu

Candid camera

bjb42 — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 14:00:54 +0000

̽��ֱ��first ever international network dedicated to the study of amateur cinema has been set up, reflecting the growing importance of home movies in academic research.

̽��ֱ��Amateur Cinema Studies Network (ACSN), https://amateurcinemastudies.org/, aims to be a virtual space for the growing number of people around the world who use home movies and amateur films for teaching and research in social sciences. Users will be able to share ideas, find new resources and get information about projects and different archives around the world. ̽��ֱ��Network will also run conferences and touring exhibitions.

To mark the launch, a clip from one such amateur film, which features rare and important footage of Gurkhas being recruited by the British Army in the 1950s, is being released on the Network’s new website, https://amateurcinemastudies.org/editors-choice/

Dr Annamaria Motrescu, the researcher at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge who set the ACSN up, said that there was a growing recognition among historians, anthropologists and other researchers that amateur cinema can be a valuable tool for people trying to understand more about their heritage, or different places and cultures.

“ ̽��ֱ��inspiration for the project comes from the thesis I wrote for my PhD, in which I argued that amateur cinema should be considered a film genre in its own right,” Motrescu said. “People used to say I was wrong, and that one couldn’t study amateur films the same way that you might look at the Western or the Film Noir genres. But that hasn’t stopped amateur films from existing, and it hasn’t stopped a huge amount of scholarship on the subject coming out.”

̽��ֱ��Gurkha film is taken from nearly 30 hours of newly digitised footage held by the Centre of South Asian Studies in Cambridge, where Motrescu is a research associate. It was donated to the ̽��ֱ�� by Mrs. Frankie Williams, the niece of a tea planter who stayed on in India after independence and who made the original footage. ̽��ֱ��Centre houses a large archive of amateur films made in India and other South Asian countries, some of which pre-date World War II.

This film captured the recruitment of men from Himalayan villages, some of them as young as 16. ̽��ֱ��silent, colour movie shows them standing and shivering as they are inspected by British Army officers. Researchers believe that it was made in or around the year 1950.

“What’s interesting about this film as an historical document is that a very similar, official film, was made by the British Government at around the same time,” Motrescu said. “ ̽��ֱ��contrast with this in the Williams film is fascinating. None of the Gurkhas has been told to perform for the camera, they’re not happy or smiling and there is no sense that they are somehow willing agents involved in the recruitment process. Against the mass-produced, Government version of similar events, this is a rare visual record of what actually happened when these young boys were drafted, and before they were sent to risk their lives on behalf of the United Kingdom.”

As with many amateur films, the significance of the Williams footage is, Motrescu says, not what it says about the British recruitment process itself, but the insight it offers into the experiences of ordinary people - the Gurkhas themselves. While many professional filmmakers have dedicated themselves to recording social history for as long as documentary cinema has existed, most do so with a particular narrative in mind.

This is rarely the case with amateur filmmaking, which means that often it offers a more candid and dispassionate view of what was actually happening. Like Motrescu’s argument in her PhD, large numbers of researchers increasingly argue that such films deserve their place as documents meriting academic study.

That recognition has been a long time coming, however. Building on work by social scientists and humanities scholars during the 1980s, Patricia Zimmerman’s ground-breaking book, Reel Families: A Social History Of Amateur Film, was the first significant analysis of the subject and was published in 1995.

By 2010, conferences on the subject of amateur film were attracting up to 200 scholars, including historians, anthropologists, psychologists and gender studies specialists, among others. Despite this interest, no formal international network acknowledging that amateur cinema is the subject of a wide range of cross-disciplinary concerns has ever existed, until now.

Unlike other amateur film associations, the ACSN will attempt to serve this community of researchers, by creating a forum online where they can discuss, debate, and share information. ̽��ֱ��Network will develop templates for teaching students about amateur cinema and promote the inclusion of such films in film and media studies courses. It will also provide users with information about archives and collections, and organise conferences and events for both the academic community and the public.

̽��ֱ��ACSN has also recently agreed to be one of the partner organisations supporting the first international web-documentary project dedicated to the Super 8 practice and film culture, a project currently developed by Spring Films (www.springfilms.tv), a London based production company developing international co-productions and high-end documentaries.

“Amateur film can play an important role in rewriting personal as well as national histories, and making them available to us now - not in a voyeuristic manner, but one which tells us more about what people felt like at the time,” Motrescu added. “They provide us with a window on to history which is both public and private at the same time.”

After years of being overlooked as a film genre, amateur cinema is finally being recognised by academics as a form that merits serious study in its own right, offering a surprisingly candid eye on people and the past. Now a new research network will, for the first time, bring their work together in one place.

People used to say that one couldn’t study amateur films the same way that you might look at the Western or the Film Noir genres. But that hasn’t stopped amateur films from existing, or scholarship on the subject coming out.

Annamaria Motrescu

Frankie WIlliams Collection © CSAS

Gurkha recruits awaiting inspection c.1950. ̽��ֱ��never-before-seen footage has been released to mark the launch of the Amateur Cinema Studies Network, http://amateurcinemastudies.org.

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Cambridge makes Hay

bjb42 — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 09:16:17 +0000

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge alumnus and Hay Festival director Peter Florence has invited the ̽��ֱ�� to contribute a third annual speaker series to the world-renowned Festival, held between May 27 and June 5.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Hay series is a spin-off from the Cambridge Festival of Ideas, and features outstanding communicators from the Cambridge academic community.

Up to 5,000 people are expected to attend the talks and discussions in the Cambridge series and this year ̽��ֱ��Telegraph is the Festival’s media partner.

Highlights this year include philosopher Baroness Onora O'Neill debating the limits of toleration in today's society and Dr Amrita Narlikar on the rise of new powers Brazil, India and China and their impact on global governance. Dr Narlikar heads Cambridge's new Centre for Rising Powers.

India is one of the focuses for this year's Festival and Dr Kevin Greenbank and Dr Annamaria Motrescu will lead a session entitled “ ̽��ֱ��Reel Raj: cinefilm and audio archive from the Centre of South Asian Studies”. This includes remarkable footage from some of the almost 300 home movies in their collection which offer a unique glimpse of life in India and other parts of South Asia during the final days of the British Empire.

Hay audiences can also look forward to Dr Ha-Joon Chang on 23 myths of capitalism and Professor Tony Wrigley in conversation with George Monbiot, discussing a new look at the industrial revolution and the links between the industrial revolution and our current energy crisis. Professor Nicky Clayton will talk about her research on crow behaviour which was featured in a series of online films made available by the ̽��ֱ��.

And with an event which may appeal to adults and children alike, Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Press Chief Executive Stephen Bourne will speak about the company’s decision to adopt a giant panda at the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Foundation in China – a bid to build closer working links with the country and to help protect the endangered species.

Other speakers include:

Dr Simon Mitton, on the books that have changed our view of the universe, from Alexandria to Cambridge
Professor Michael Lamb on children in the legal system
Professor Gerry Gilmore on whether science claims to know the unknowable
Professor Rosamond McKitterick on history, memory and ideas about the past
Dr Ulinka Rublack on dress codes in Renaissance Europe
Dr Clive Oppenheimer on eruptions that shook the world
Professor Simon Blackburn on the relationship between language and action, pragmatism, and practical reasoning.
Dr Rachel Polonsky on Molotov, one of Stalin's fiercest henchmen.

Nicola Buckley, currently Head of Community Affairs, said: “ ̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is delighted to be contributing its speaker series to the Hay Festival once again. We welcome the Festival director’s vision to open up Cambridge research on historic and contemporary India, among many other topics, to the Hay audience, and we look forward to lively talks and debates.”

̽��ֱ��full line-up for the Cambridge series at the Hay Festival is:

Fri 27/5, 5.15pm

Professor Sir Colin Humphreys

Cambridge Series 1 - " ̽��ֱ��Mystery of the Last Supper: Reconstructing the Final Days of Jesus".

Reconciling conflicting Gospel accounts and scientific evidence, the distinguished Cambridge physicist reveals the exact date of the Last Supper in a definitive new timeline of Holy Week and offers a complete reassessment of the final days of Jesus.

Fri 27/5, 6.30pm Professor John Barrow

̽��ֱ��Book of Universes

̽��ֱ��mathematician encounters universes where the laws of physics can change from time to time and from one region to another, universes that have extra hidden dimensions of space and time, universes that are eternal, universes that live inside black holes, universes that end without warning, colliding universes, inflationary universes, and universes that come into being from something else – or from nothing at all.

Fri 27/5, 7.45pm Dr Simon Mitton

From Alexandria to Cambridge

̽��ֱ��historian of astronomy examines of Five Books That Changed Our View of the Universe: Ptolemy's Almagest, Copernicus' De Revolutionibus, Galileo's Siderius Nuncius and Dialogo, and Newton's Principia. A facsimile of the Copernicus manuscript will be displayed.

Sat 28/5, 2.30pm Professor Michael Lamb

Angels, Demons, Dunces

̽��ֱ��developmental forensic psychologist examines our inconsistent views of children in the legal system.

Sun 29/5, 2.30pm Dr Ha-Joon Chang

23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

̽��ֱ��economist turns all received wisdom about free markets, globalisation and the digital revolution on its head and offers an utterly compelling alternative. Chaired by Jesse Norman of the Treasury Select Committee.

Mon 30/5, 4pm Professor Tony Wrigley

Opening Pandora's Box: a New Look at the Industrial Revolution

All material production requires energy. All pre-industrial economies derived the bulk of their energy from agriculture. Production horizons were tightly bounded. ̽��ֱ��use of fossil fuel overcame this limitation. Chaired by George Monbiot.

Tues 31/5, 1130 Stephen Bourne

Panda-monium: social responsibility in China

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Press has adopted the young giant panda Jian Qiao at the Chengdu Research Foundation in China. Its CEO reports on the practicalities and symbolism of this new relationship, and we'll meet Jian Qiao on the big screen.

Tues 31/5, 1pm Professor Simon Blackburn

Practical Tortoise Raising

̽��ֱ��Philosopher explores the relationship between language and action, pragmatism, pluralism and practical reasoning.

Tues 31/5, 1pm Professor Clive Oppenheimer

Eruptions That Shook ̽��ֱ��World

̽��ֱ��volcanologist explores geological, historical and archaeological records to ask how volcanic eruptions have shaped the trajectory of human society through prehistory and history. He looks at the evidence for

volcanic cataclysm and considers how we can prepare ourselves for future catastrophes.

Tues 31/5, 5.30pm Dr Amrita Narlikar

̽��ֱ��Rise of New Powers and the Challenges of Global Trade Governance

No good deed goes unpunished: the WTO’s timely response to accommodate the new powers – Brazil, China, and India – at the heart of its decision-making has created new opportunities but also generated unanticipated new problems. What insights can be learnt about the rise of new powers within the WTO and in other multilateral organisations?

Tues 31/5, 7pm Dr Kevin Greenbank / Dr Annamaria Motrescu

̽��ֱ��Reel Raj: cinefilm and audio archive

An overview of the digital holdings of the Centre of South Asian Studies and their potential in the teaching of British and South Asian imperial history. Chaired by Hannah Rothschild.

Weds 1/6, 11.30am Professor Gerry Gilmore

Past, present and infinite future?

Was there anything before the beginning, why does science claim to know the apparently unknowable; where do I come from? What do we know about the infinite future?

Weds 1/6, 4pm Rev Dr John Polkinghorne

Quantum Theory

" ̽��ֱ��mathematician, theoretical physicist and priest explains the strange and exciting ideas that make the subatomic world so different from the world of the every day."

Thurs 2/6, 2.30pm Dr Ulinka Rublack

Dressing Up: Cultural identity in Renaissance Europe

Historian Dr Rublack will show why clothes made history and history can be about clothes. Her research imagines the Renaissance afresh by considering people´s appearances: what they wore, how this made them move, what images they created, and how all this made people feel about themselves.

Thurs 2/6, 5.30pm Dr Rachel Polonsky

Molotov's Magic Lantern

A luminous, original and unforgettable exploration of a country and its literature, viewed through the eyes of Vyacheslav Molotov, one of Stalin's fiercest henchmen.

Fri 3/6, 2.30pm Professor Nicky Clayton

̽��ֱ��Ape On Your Bird Table

Crows are as smart as apes. They manufacture tools, they are socially sophisticated, and they plan where to cache for tomorrow's breakfast. These findings have led to a re-evaluation of avian cognition, and resulted in a theory that intelligence evolved independently in apes and crows.

Sat 4/6, 2.30pm Professor Rosamond McKitterick

History, Memory and Ideas About the Past

̽��ֱ��historian focuses on uses of memory and the problems of the relation between memory and written, especially narrative and records of memory. Particular memories can also be exploited to reinforce an identity or even an ideology. Modern historians have distinguished between official and popular history and memory, as well as collective and individual manifestations and uses of memory. She will explore how helpful modern experience may be in interpreting the distant past. Case studies of historical narratives and epitaphs inscribed on stone from the early middle ages (c. 500-c.900) will serve to highlight both the kind of material with which an early medieval historian works, and its implications for historical knowledge and interpretation more generally.

Sun 5/6, 2.30pm Baroness Onora O'Neill

Is Toleration Still A Virtue?

̽��ֱ��philosopher is an exacting examiner of great issues such as freedom of speech, assisted suicide and

stem cell research. Here she explores a fundamental assumption of liberal societies.

̽��ֱ��books that have changed our view of the Universe, eruptions that shook the world and Stalin's fiercest henchmen are just some of the themes that will be under discussion during the popular Cambridge Series at this year's Hay Literary Festival.

We welcome the vision to open up Cambridge research on historic and contemporary India, among many other topics, to the Hay audience.

Nicola Buckley

Peter Curbishley from Flickr

Hay Festival

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

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