Archivio Aperto Bologna – 21. UNDER|DOX 08

The archive as a space of negotiation

How much the medium of film and its past have transformed up to date becomes visible in the modification of its carrier materials: from the celluloid of small-gauge film, through
magnetic tape, to the digital disc.

The Archivio Aperto festival, held annually in Bologna since 2008 and organized by Home Movies – Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia, is dedicated to the rediscovery of small-format film heritage and its contemporary re-use.

In collaboration with the festival Archivio Aperto, this program
is dedicated to small-format film heritage and its contemporary re-use. The focus is not the archival material itself, but its recontextualization. This makes clear that history is never simply told objectively, but is always a construction shaped by perspective, selection, and context.

The films shown here emerge from a resonance space of their own: the personal, artistic dialogue between their directors and the archival material. It is recontextualised, re-edited,
and placed into new frameworks. Out of foreign images, films of their own emerge. They carry narratives forward, shift them, break them open. The archive does not merely preserve and remember; it becomes a space of negotiation: history dissolves, and takes shape again. – Stella Kluge, Young People’s Choice

Trip After

thursday 8 oct 7 pm filmmuseum | opening

In the 1960s, the United States Information Service (USIS) mobile film units travelled around the northeast region of Thailand showing their self-produced propaganda films to rural audiences as part of a psychological operation. The Community Development Worker, one of their most well-received works, was also filmed in a province in that same region.
”Trip After” is a 2022 travel vlog inspired by the field trip reports of those USIS mobile film units. The film revisits the same locations where the original screenings and filming took place, whether to trace, articulate, or fabricate the impression of the past events.

Archival material

‘The Community Development Worker’ (1963), a short documentary film produced by the United States Information Service (USIS) in Bangkok for propaganda purposes, intended for screenings in rural areas. Film clip provided by the Film Archive of Thailand. ‘Sherlock Jr.’ (1924), a silent film directed by Buster Keaton, in the public domain.

Ukrit Sa-nguanhai

He is particularly interested in the aesthetics of amateur film and early film history. The filmmaker lives in Bangkok.

Autorretrato a los 13

friday 9 oct 6 pm filmmuseum | archivio aperto

A room, a Virgin Mary, toothpaste ads, bikinis, the Ecuador-Peru war, Venezuelan soap operas, late-night news, the devil and the sun – a child discovers cinema. A schizophrenic video collage, like Ecuadorian identity or the new century.

Archival material

Ecuadorian television news programmes broadcast by Ecuavisa, Teleamazonas and Si TV between 1990 and 1996, as well as a private Mini-DV archive from 2006.

Oscar X. Illingworth

Ecuadorian documentary filmmaker and film editor. In his film collages, he combines archive footage with contemporary material to explore themes such as history, identity and the constant tension between humankind and nature.

Oscar X. Illingworth | EC 2025 | 18 min

Sensitive Material

friday 9 oct 6 pm filmmuseum | archivio aperto

The film’s starting point is a collection of randomly shot moments of happiness and an accidentally captured audio recording. In a painful conversation, fifty-year-old Lilia speaks of her mental trauma as a result of her parents’ constant disputes during her childhood, while her mother justifies the lack of love by the strict frames of a totalitarian society.

Nataliya Ilchuk

Born in 1985 in Lviv. Studied film in Kyiv, Warsaw and Le Fresnoy, France. She works with private archives and explores the influence of modern technology and political ideology on the shaping of human relationships and artistic processes.

Nataliya Ilchuk | UA 2021 | 26 min

HOW TO WRITE, an AI guide in four steps

friday 9 oct 6 pm filmmuseum | archivio aperto

In a future without imagination, storytelling means recycling the past. A vintage tutorial, narrated by an AI, guides creators in combining fragments of old narratives, revealing that creation is construction, not invention.

Archival material

Footage from various online archives licensed under a public domain licence: the Prelinger Archives, Eva Völkstorm, the Mario Perez Video Collection and the Al Larvick Conservation Fund.

Nicola Eddy

Born in Venice in 1993. Film editor, screenwriter and director. His work explores memory and shifting identities.

State of Elevation (Condition d’élévation)

friday 9 oct 6 pm filmmuseum | archivio aperto

It is aboard a stratospheric balloon of which she holds the secret, that a teenage girl makes a strange encounter in outer space. Two investigations try to unravel the true from the false. One is conducted in the present, the other in the past. One uses images, the other speech. One looks into Space, the other into the depths… This is how the story of a quest brings together both archives and fiction.

Archival material

Observatoire de l’Espace du CNES.

Isabelle Prim

She lives and works in Paris. Her films blend experimental and narrative elements, as well as archive footage and fiction.

The Veiled City

friday 9 oct 6 pm filmmuseum | archivio aperto

A speculative city symphony inspired by London’s Great Smog of 1952. Created from archive footage, the story unfolds through fictional letters from a post-apocalyptic future. The film invites us to understand the smog in the context of the present-day climate crisis.

Archival material

BFI National Archive, British Pathé, AP, British Movietone, North West Film Archive, Media Archive Central England, Getty Images, Kinolibrary, Critical Past

Natalie Cubides-Brady

A writer and director with a background in the visual arts. She works at the intersection of documentary and fiction.