IUL MIA brings unseen films to exhibit

IU Libraries Moving Image Archive, also known as IULMIA, interim Director Carmel Curtis has strategically searched the Archives’ extensive catalog and paged through film lists dating back to the 1920s to find the footage now on display. She selected each of them for the You (probably) Haven’t Seen This Before screening series that she started three years ago. Since February 2022, there have been 26 screenings and 103 films shown.

“I've been looking at [those screenings] as a way to do research into the archive and to elevate voices, communities, stories, amateur filmmaking, independent filmmaking, discarded outtakes; and to elevate these stories, these films, and to bring them to an audience.” Curtis said. 

For every film she selected for the series, there were 20 others viewed. But this work also leads to enhanced metadata and accessibility for each film, Curtis said.  

“The act of pulling it from storage, viewing it, checking the physical condition of it and adding some limited metadata to our record enhances the possibility for another researcher to use it in the future,” Curtis said.  

When Linda Tien, the director of the Grunwald Gallery, reached out to Curtis about the possibility of doing an exhibit, Curtis wanted to create an intimate, accessible space. 

Tien said that the gallery often brings together the arts and humanities, and working with these films provided an opportunity to create a continuous viewing experience that played to the non-linear strengths of some of the films. And for her, one of the biggest highlights of working on the exhibit was working with Curtis. 

“After meeting Carmel, it was immediately put on my bucket list as a collaboration that I’d want to work on because I admire the work she does over at the archive,” Tien said. 

Curtis emphasized the collaborative nature of the project, and said she couldn’t have done it without the support of the team at the IULMIA, and the work of Tien and her colleagues at the Grunwald Gallery.

“My three colleagues [at IUMIA] gave me the confidence to give it a try,” Curtis said. “One of the things I hope people get from the exhibit is this motivation to just try and do something, to create. My colleagues give me that support to just try and put myself out there, like curating an exhibit.” 

Related Events:

To complement the current exhibition "YOU (Probably) HAVEN'T SEEN THIS BEFORE," the Grunwald Gallery presents a multi-faceted event that will feature live interviews facilitated by Alex Chambers, host of WFIU’s Inner States podcast, about moments that embody a resistance to the status quo. Attendees may participate in experimental camera-less filmmaking, creating art inspired by the action and agency in the stories told from Amy Oelsner, Stephanie Littell, and Ileana Haberman. At the end of the evening, the strips of film will be spliced together and projected in the gallery.