Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2005 Sommario / Contents

Antoine) but in the selection of collegians, participants, and subjects for dialogue there will be special emphasis on the problems and
practice of film conservation and archiving at a crucial historical moment, when both technology and philosophies are in state of violent flux.
In other respects the aim and style of the Collegium remain unchanged: its first years have demonstrated the validity of our approach.
Underlying all is the determination to excite a new generation in the idea of cinema history and heritage, and to infiltrate these newcomers into
the very special – but inevitably ageing – community that has evolved around the Giornate during its 24 years. The exotic (and knowingly
pretentious) name is inspired by a historic medieval religio-philosophical seminar which took place in the city, and implies the Collegium’s
unconventional experiment in the technique of study. It is designed to take advantage of the unique conditions of the Giornate: a highly
concentrated one-week event; the possibility to see an extensive collection of rare archival films; the presence in one place and at one time of
many (perhaps most) of the world’s best qualified experts in film history – scholars, historians, archivists, collectors, critics, academics, and
just plain enthusiasts. Rejecting the conventional “summer school” style of a formal teaching programme, the Collegium returns to a
fundamental, classical concept of study, in which the impetus is the students’ curiosity and inquiry. Instead of formal lectures and panels, the
daily sessions are designed as “Dialogues”, in the Platonic sense, when the collegians sit down with groups of experts in different disciplines.
The Dialogues are designed not just to elicit information and instruction, but to allow the collegians to make direct personal and social
connection with the Giornate habitués and to discover them as peers whom they can readily approach, in the course of the week, for
supplementary discussion.
To focus their inquiry, the members of the Collegium collaborate on the production of a collection of papers on themes emerging from or
inspired by the experience of the week. Each collegian is required to contribute an essay, and the criterion is that the principal source must
be the Giornate programme, or conversation and interviews with the scholars and experts to whom the week facilitates access. It has to be, in
short, a work that could not have been produced without the Giornate experience. The first six collections of the Collegium Papers are already
published. The quality of the individual essays is inevitably uneven, but the best of them reveal a fresh spirit in film history writing, exploring
new forms and rejecting the lazy deployment of jargon and unreflecting citation that often disfigures student writing. The Collegium Papers at
their best are far more than a student exercise, but fresh, useful and revealing reading. – DAVID ROBINSON
The programme for the 2005 Dialogues is:
Sunday 9 October: Market v. Museum? - “The Knowledge Industry”
Monday 10 October: Japanese Silent Cinema (1)
Tuesday 11 October: Silent Cinema and Digital Technologies
Wednesday 12 October: Mission Impossible: Restoring A Daughter of Israel
Thursday 13 October: Beyond the Rocks: Reaching New Audiences
Friday 14 October: André Antoine and French Realism
Saturday 15 October: Japanese Silent Cinema (2)
THE DIALOGUES WILL BE HELD DAILY AT 13:00 AND ARE OPEN TO EVERYONE. ALL SESSIONS WILL TAKE PLACE AT THE HOTEL DUE LEONI, EXCEPT
FOR THOSE ON MONDAY 10 (PALAZZO OVIO GOBBI) AND WEDNESDAY 12 OCTOBER (TEATRO RUFFO).
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