100 tales from the world's cinema vaults

By Michelle Crowe

October 26th, 2023

Two people pose standing behind a table with a display of books. Equipment is visible in the background

Pictured above, co-editor Rachael Stoeltje (left) stands with Christophe Dupin, Senior Administrator with the International Federation of Film Archives (fiaf) with copies of the newly published book, Tales from the Vaults.

Written by guest journalist Barb Berggoetz

One hundred vivid tales of iconic, unique, and historically significant cinematic devices from around the world fill a new bilingual coffee table book co-edited by an IU Libraries director.

“Tales from the Vaults: Film Technology over the Years and across Continents," published in June 2023, is a collection of stories written by archivists, film preservationists, and scholars interested in cinema. "Authors from 37 countries detail a wide range of pre-cinema, cinema, video, and digital devices developed since the late 1800s," said co-editor Rachael Stoeltje, director of IU Libraries Moving Image Archive.

“I think the book is for anybody interested in film history, inventors, technologies, early cinema, and cinematic history,” said Stoeltje. “These are little gems, 700 words.”

One tale describes the 8mm home movie camera, owned by Dallas resident Abraham Zapruder, who filmed President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. "Another depicts the first motion-picture film cameras in the world created by the Lumiere Brothers in 1895 in France," said Stoeltje. She also points out several articles: one about mounted cameras on rifle butts used by Russia soldiers in World War II; another delves into Cambodian projectors used by the government to spread propaganda in the 1970s; and another concerning a recreation vehicle in Mexico with a pop-up projector that traveled the countryside bringing cinema to the masses.

According to Marion Frank-Wilson, associate dean for collection development and archival collections at IU Libraries, Tales from the Vaults is just the most recent example of the impact of Stoeltje’s international reputation. She said, “Rachael is brilliant. Her deep expertise in film preservation is recognized internationally, and she has held leadership positions in all major film preservation associations, most notably as president of the Association of Moving Image Archivists. It is largely through her personal efforts that IU’s film archive is recognized by researchers from around the world.”

Rachael Stoeltje is the Founding Director of the Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive and the President of the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA).

Stoeltje, who also teaches moving image preservation at IU’s Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, said "...the book is not intended to be a comprehensive history of cinematic technology, but to offer interesting descriptions of devices, reveal the impact they had in history and how cinema developed differently worldwide."

“It’s almost like a portrait of an object,” she said. “What we really wanted to do was to think about objects in archives that tell stories, the technological part of cinema, like the very first camera.”

In a darkened room, a panel of speakers sits on a stage with a large screen above them. The screen has a collage of images visible. There is a seated audience.

A panel of speakers is seated at a table. A women wearing glasses speaks into a microphone

Photo credit to Valerio Greco.

The Brussels-based International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF), dedicated to preserving and accessing the world’s film heritage, published the book in partnership with TECHNÈS, the International Research Partnership on Cinema Technology, based at the University of Montreal. The June 2023 book launch was a presentation and reception held as part of the Cinema Ritrovato, a film festival held annually in Bologna, Italy.

Co-editor Louis Pelletier (TECHNÈS) is a University of Montreal researcher who teaches film history, and also been published by IU Press. Stoeltje, who served on FIAF’s executive committee, said the two organizations issued a call for proposals in late 2020 to 150 archives and related institutions worldwide. She reported 187 proposals received, of which 100 were selected, written by 113 authors. Editing, getting device images, and preparing for publication took more than two years.

“We received remarkably rich histories,” she said. "Some were written in French and most were in English, but each submission was translated in the other language and included in both."

"Of special interest," she said, "is the foreword written by filmmaker Christopher Nolan, whose movie Oppenheimer came out over the summer." FIAF gave him an honorary award in 2017 for his advocacy for film preservation, and current FIAF Executive Committee member Shivendra Singh Dungarpur asked Mr. Nolan to write the foreword.

“Even though he was in the midst finalizing everything for Oppenheimer, he accepted. We are so honored to have his contribution,” she said. He writes of the importance of preserving the medium of film and that technological innovations have a timeless quality.

From the publisher

Tales from the Vaults: Film Technology over the Years and across Continents collects 100 stories of boundless creativity and ingenuity. Submitted by the archives and film preservationists who now care for this long-neglected heritage alongside historians, these tales cover a wide range of pre-cinema, cinema, video and digital devices developed since the eighteenth century, and used all around the world by filmmakers, exhibitors, hobbyists and archivists. Yet, these tales also frequently enable us to conceive film histories that go beyond individual inventors and film auteurs, or the specificities of national cinemas, by making visible the international networks through which film technology was conceived, circulated, used and constantly adapted to emerging practices.

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Moving Image Archive

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