The Indiana University Libraries Film Archive and the IU Cinema successfully hosted the Orphans Midwest Film Symposium September 26th through the 28th. The symposium was a collaboration among IU, the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and the Orphan Film Project, which is dedicated to studying and preserving the hidden corners of moving image history. Over 100 attendees came from as far away as California, South Carolina, and Maine to discuss the symposium’s theme: materiality and the moving image. More than 60 presenters discussed how the digitization of films, video, and TV is transforming how we understand, conserve, and watch media. Further, the disciplinarily diverse audience – academic scholars, archivists, artists, collectors, curators – were treated to premieres of newly made films as well as numerous restorations of previously unavailable works from media archives.
The star-studded opening reception included Robby Benson, one of IU's newest faculty members, IU President Michael A. McRobbie and his wife Laurie Burns McRobbie. In his welcoming remarks, President McRobbie offered a preview of his State of the University address. The closing banquet, which took place on the IU Art Museum Sculpture Terrace, included an experimental film projected onto the museum along with little-known facts about IU's impressive media collection and history within the world of the moving image.
Find more information at the Orphans Midwest website.