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In search of a format: The strange case of the International Festival of Scientific-Didactic Film 1956-1975
The paper analyses the case of the Rassegna internazionale del film scientifico-didattico (International Festival of Scientific and Educational Film, hence IFSEF), a pioneering non-theatrical science film festival event held at the University of Padova between 1956 and 1975 in collaboration with the Venice Film Festival. The interaction of science, cinema and society has been addressed by research using a wide range of disciplinary approaches (Bonah and Laukotter2020; Boon, 2008; Curtis 2018, 2015; Gaycken 2015; Landecker 2012; Lefebvre 2004; Olszynko-Gryn 2021; Wellmann2011). Although film festivals too continue to receive scholarly attention (Dalla Gassa et al. 2022; de Valck, Kredell and Lois, 2016; Iordanova 2013, and others), critical literature has relatively neglected the distinctive format of science film festivals. Issues of format and spectatorship are deeply intertwined. Often screened in prominent film festivals such as Venice, Cannes, and Bruxelles, science films could stimulate a unique form of spectatorship in conjunction with the aesthetic, immersive approach fostered by the feature-film sections of those well-known festivals. After all, the moment when a scientific or medical film exists as film and not anymore as a mean of transmitting information or of illustrating a theory, then it is at this very precise moment that the film in question can become interesting to the eyes of the viewer.
The case of IFSEF is unique. Not only it showcased the work of pioneers of scientific cinema (Éric Duvivier, Eric Lucey, SemyonRaytburt, Norman P. Schenkeramong others), but more importantly, thanks to its peculiar format, it tested the permeable boundaries between scientific content and aesthetic form, research and education, public academic institutions and private companies producing the films. Supported by an on-going empiricalanalysis of existing archival records in need to be preserved and made publicly accessible, this paper argues thatIFSEF, with its distinctive format,did and still can stimulate an active form of spectatorship - audiencing to use Gouyon’s term (2016: 27).
- Speaker
- Silvia Casini
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- via Teams
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