A Century of 16mm will include a physical exhibition at Bloomington’s newest exhibition space, IU’s University Collections at McCalla, which was renovated with support from the Allen Whitehill Clowes Foundation last year. The exhibition will feature items primarily curated from IULMIA’s Alan Lewis Collection such as 16mm cameras and projectors. The exhibition will open in February 2023 and run through December 2023. IU Press will produce the exhibition catalogue.

IU Cinema Founding Director Jon Vickers and his wife, Jennifer, are curating a series of 16mm screenings from the Moving Image Archive’s collections that will take place around Indiana throughout 2023. The Vickers have over 25 years of cinema curation and exhibition experience, including the opening and management of a cinema in Michigan and the opening and leadership of the Browning Cinema at the University of Notre Dame.

The screenings planned for A Century of 16mm are comprised of rich programs of educational films that were distributed and sometimes even produced by Indiana University. The most famous film among those to be screened is The Masters of Disaster (1986), a documentary produced by IU that follows eight black sixth graders at Indianapolis Public School 27 who form a chess team and go on to become national champions. It was the only film made by IU to be nominated for an Academy Award (Best Documentary Short). Throughout much of the twentieth century, IU was one of the largest centers for educational film distribution in the country. After the distribution unit was closed in the 1990s, the Moving Image Archive was created to preserve and make these films accessible.

While many programs in A Century of 16mm will offer retrospective looks at the medium, some will promote contemporary scholarship and creativity activity around 16mm. Stoeltje has commissioned 16 different filmmakers around the country to create films using only two three-minute 16mm reels each, one color and one black and white. The films will be screened at IU Cinema. 

Waller will co-edit a book of 25 essays on 16mm film with Haidee Wasson of Concordia University, Montreal. Titled 16 at 100, the book will be published by Oxford University Press and feature scholars from around the world exploring issues such as the historical development of 16mm technology and the use of the film by institutions and artists. 

In September 2023, IU Bloomington will host a multi-day academic conference featuring presentations, panel discussions, and workshops with leading scholars, archivists, and filmmakers, including several contributors to 16 at 100, as well as IU graduate students and alumni. The conference call for papers is open through January 31, 2023. The conference program will also include several screenings at IU Cinema and the IU Libraries Screening Room.  

As Waller noted, A Century of 16mm reflects IU’s historic strengths in film studies and production, as well as the university’s recent emphasis on expanding upon these strengths.

More information about A Century of 16mm can be found on the project website. Dates and times of all public events will be shared on the site as they are finalized. 

IU Libraries’ Moving Image Archive is one of the world’s largest educational film and video collections. With more than 130,000 items spanning nearly 80 years of film production, the Archive is a member of the distinguished International Federation of Film Archives, the world’s leading association for film preservation.

The Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation was founded in 1990 to continue the legacy of Indianapolis philanthropist Allen Clowes by promoting and preserving the arts and humanities in Central Indiana.