Archival Film Curatorship is the first book-length study that investigates film archives at the intersection of institutional histories, early and silent film historiography, and archival curatorship. It examines three institutions at the forefront of experimentation with film exhibition and curatorship. The Eye Film Museum in Amsterdam, the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY, and the National Fairground and Circus Archive in Sheffield, UK serve as exemplary sites of historical mediation between early and silent cinema and the digital age. A range of elements, from preservation protocols to technologies of display and from museum architectures to curatorial discourses in blogs, catalogs, and interviews, shape what the author innovatively theorizes as the archive’s hermeneutic dispositif. Archival Film Curatorship offers film and preservation scholars a unique take on the shifting definitions, histories, and uses of the medium of film by those tasked with preserving and presenting it to new digital-age audiences.

The Open Source version of this book is available here.

Selected reviews:

“Ingravalle brilliantly explores the histories of three key film archives as institutions established in the 20th century that have revised and transformed their missions in the digital era. Archival practices and archival theories are intertwined in this penetrating study of film and media histories and futures.”
– Catherine Russell, Distinguished Professor of Film Studies, Concordia University, Montreal

“Archival Film Curatorship offers a vital contribution to moving image archiving studies. Grounded in Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics and extensive, original archival research, the book simultaneously reminds us that silent films’ historicity is the product of deep-rooted institutional traditions, while showing a way forward for film curation amidst the accelerating datafication of film heritage.”
– Christian Olesen, Assistant Professor of Digital Media & Cultural Heritage, University of Amsterdam