AMIA 2024

Prelinger Archives is in the final year of a three-year grant for mass-digitization of its film collection funded by Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web. Since the start of the project, Prelinger Archives staff have scanned over 2.5 million feet of film and uploaded over 1500 items, while collectively developing practices of inclusive and reparative description to allow multiple avenues into a vast trove of moving images. This curated screening session will highlight rarities and treasures within the collection that have inspired, delighted and bewildered staff. The speakers, all Prelinger Archives staff, will each share experiences from the project as footage is screened and will speak to working with a unique collection that contains a wide array of materials (outtakes, home movies, warped films).

For over five decades, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Department of Film, Video, Animation, and New Genres has fostered a significant community of experimental filmmakers, who flock to the school for its focus on artist-driven practice. As one of the few schools that still requires students to gain experience working with 16mm film production, Milwaukee has become well-known in avant-garde film circles for its experimental film scene, and the city is now home to an abundance of institutions, programs, festivals, and itinerant spaces that focus on experimental film. In celebration of Milwaukee’s vibrant experimental film community, this screening session will present a survey of recent experimental 16mm films from Milwaukee, highlighting how analog filmmaking is being reinvented by contemporary filmmakers, who make specific use of the medium’s unique affordances and limitations. This session is sponsored by the Small Gauge and Amateur Film Committee.

Take a break from a long day of conference-going with a micro-film festival hosted by AMIA's LGBT Committee! We'll be celebrating queer cinema by screening a handful of the committee's personal favorite short films spanning genres, geographical locations, and the infinite richness and vibrancy of the queer community. (A full film program will be available at the door, complete with descriptions, backgrounds, and any content warnings.)