These and other questions will be addressed at a panel and screening event at the University of Bristol on Thursday 18 November, as part of this year’s Encounters Film Festival.

Film archives are an important and fascinating resource for filmmakers and researchers alike.  But as soon as anyone encounters archive material, the floodgates open on a whole range of interesting ethical questions.  The panel will bring together an archivist, a curator, a film historian and a filmmaker to wrestle with these and other issues.

The panel members are: Phil Wickham, Curator at the Bill Douglas Centre for the History of Cinema and Popular Culture, Professor Sarah Street, author of a number of cinema books, including British National Cinema, Bridget Crone, Artistic Director of Media Art Bath, and Sarah Cox, Creative Director at Bristol-based production company ArthurCox.

The Encountering the Archive panel takes place at the Wickham Theatre, Drama Department University of Bristol, Cantocks Close, Woodland Rd, Bristol BS8 1UP at 5pm on Thursday 18th November. 

The panel discussion will be followed by the screening of three  different film projects, each using the treasures found in regional film archives to mould their own stories:

Time Traveller’s Guide to Bristol (compilation), directed by Sarah Cox.  Spanning the border between geography and history, Time Traveller’s Guide uses archive film to put Bristol’s cityscape into historical perspective.  Animator and producer Sarah Cox collaborated with a number of colleagues and local institutions to help realise this ambitious project.

Falls Burns Malone Fiddles, directed by Duncan Campbell.  Using photographs sourced from a Belfast archive, Campbell’s film draws on the melancholy mysteries of a troubled social history.  Irish-born Campbell is a versatile artist whose work in film veers between art and documentary, the factual and the abstract.

Screen Tests, directed by Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska.  Commissioned as part of the British Art Show Six, Screen Tests re-imagines material from archives in Manchester, Nottingham and Plymouth.  Cummings and Lewandowska have collaborated regularly on various art projects, ranging from installations and performances to films and publications.

The screenings begin at 7pm on Thursday 18 November at the Wickham Theatre, Drama Department, University of Bristol.

Tickets for both the panel and the screening are £10, £8 concessions, available from Encounters Film Festival.