2023 2020 Winners

R3store Studios

Archival highlights

Established in 2016, we have become a leading company for scanning, grading, and restoration services. With clients worldwide, including the UK and Ireland, we specialize in fast turnaround scans for feature films and TV shows. Our recent upgrades in storage and computers enable real-time 4K working and HDR grading, resulting in faster turnaround times and a broader range of services. We collaborate closely with Archive Researchers and Producers to understand their exact requirements, making them an integral part of our team for long-term projects. Additionally, we provide training and support to non-technical team members, and we encourage clients to visit us to ensure technical specifications are met. Our experienced team works with diverse clients, such as archives, museums, brands, and feature films. Notable recent projects include music documentaries and the digitization and restoration of the Guinness archive, including over 500 global adverts. We have also launched a podcast in collaboration with our sister company, featuring interviews with clients discussing their careers and projects.

Huntley Film Archives

Archival highlights

Huntley Film Archives had a productive year, now housing over 100,000 film elements. With a new film scanner, they accelerated the availability of films, listing 78,000 titles on their website by mid-April 2023, including 12,500 HD scans for immediate purchase. The website expands daily, offering 10 to 20 new HD films for researchers to search by keyword, decade, category, and color. Specialist areas like 1960s U.S. Civil Rights footage and Gulf area films were made available in HD. The company attended trade shows and visited film archives worldwide, expanding into overseas markets. They prioritize preserving and scanning rare 28mm prints and offer amateur films as a unique resource. The company also provides work placements and recently expanded their archive into a neighboring building to accommodate new prints.

Getty Images

Archival highlights

Getty Images, founded in 1995, is a renowned provider of visual assets with a library of 520 million assets and partnerships with 70 editorial content partners. Their video collection boasts over 23 million clips, including content from top editorial video producers. They pioneered the content partner model, facilitating the commercialization of digital content and serving as a distribution channel for non-digitized video content from iconic collections like BBC and NBC News Archives. Getty Images supports the TV and film production industry, assisting over 2,000 productions in 2022 across various genres. They offer services such as Proof of Concept, personalized account management, and improved response times. Getty Images invests in teams, processes, and customer feedback to enhance their offerings and continues to prioritize authenticity and accurate visual representation.

Graham Relton

Job Title::

Archive Manager

Company::

Yorkshire Film Archive

Archival highlights

In 2022 Graham celebrated 15 years at the Yorkshire and North East Film Archives. During this time, he has grown and shapeshifted into many different roles, from project and team management to film show presenter, footage salesperson, marketing/PR, curator to producer; however, at the heart of what he does is create access to the moving image collections of Yorkshire and the North East that he is so passionate about. His flexibility is crucial to the Archive’s success, but he is the first to say he couldn’t do his ‘bit’ without the whole team's hard work and the rich and diverse collections held in the vaults.

His knowledge of the collections is vast, but his willingness to help sets him apart. Graham endeavours to unlock the archives for you whether you’re a student, artist, museum curator, independent filmmaker, archive researcher or production company. This year alone, he’s supported hundreds of productions and archive producers representing the BBC, ITV, 72 Films, Wall to Wall Media, 35 Yard Development, Viacom, Les Films d'Ici and Florentine Films, to name a few.

Graham understands the power of the collections and how they can be repurposed and repackaged to engage traditional and non-traditional audiences. In 2022 Graham sourced, supplied and cleared an abundance of material for the StoryTrails AR/VR experiences and spectacular outdoor multimedia events in Bradford, Hull and Newcastle.

Graham’s ethos is ‘It’s not a vault full of films, it’s a vault full of stories’. He’s dedicated to supplying footage to clients efficiently and enthusiastically and uncovering and revealing the stories himself. In 2022 he conceived and executed ‘Seen to be Believed’: a standalone production booked by over 80 community and film groups (over 5000 people) screened as part of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations. He has been instrumental in the Archive’s TV Time Machine project, charting the history of television in the North, orchestrating events and presenting locality-based screenings. He has kickstarted the Archive’s Nature Matters project.

He was the lead Archive Producer on a cross-archive production, ‘Echoes of the North’, that brought early moving image heritage together with a new brass composition. Graham’s skill in this production was identifying and overseeing the archive content and having the vision to see a narrative that experienced editor Andy Burns could shape into this unique production.

That vision is a huge asset, perfectly demonstrated in a timely short film produced by Graham: ‘Cost of Living’. From the initial concept to supporting/securing funding, research and sourcing hundreds of clips, to curatorial support to filmmaker Andy Burns, managing donors and clearing rights, to project management, promotion and advocacy for the production, without Graham’s determination and drive this powerful and affecting film wouldn’t have come to fruition.

Graham is a proud champion of the Archive, its collections, its team and the industry. He goes above and beyond to make this rich film heritage accessible to all. He sometimes says, ‘don’t see the Archive as a service; see us as an extension of your team’.

Martin Lisius

Job Title:

Producer/Director/Founder

Company:

Prairie Pictures StormStock

Archival highlights

Martin Lisius continues to innovate and break new ground in the production of new footage content produced specifically for licensing. He carefully plans his shoots employing the same production techniques utilized by big budget feature films and commercials. The final product is sought out by top directors and producers worldwide. Lisius became the first-ever to offer 16K video footage for license thanks to a custom designed camera system he developed. He believes that licensable footage can be state-of-the-art and should always exceed what some in the market expect from "stock footage." His 30-year effort has had a positive impact on the industry by proving that stock footage can be among the best motion picture imagery ever captured.

Notable content produced and shot specifically for stock footage use by Martin Lisius: First-ever violent-class tornado on Super 35.

Only 4K footage of Hurricane Katrina making landfall in the world (2005).

One of the world's largest collections of storm and climate footage, beginning in 1993. Only 16K video footage in the world available for license.

Jo Griffin

Job Title:

Chief Operating Officer

Company:

R3store Studios

Archival highlights

I'm working on an archive heavy feature documentary that requires the handling and transfer of many precious, unique and fragile films. Jo Griffin at R3Store has been absolutely outstanding in accommodating the very particular and complex needs our project requires. Her patience and professionalism in handling the myriad of material we have sent has been truly impressive. All the archival material needs to be of the highest specification possible and the end results have far exceeded our expectations. Time and time again she has gone above and beyond the call of duty to give us exactly what we need. When COVID sent us all into a tailspin, Jo somehow managed to keep all our film-reels spinning! Jo has personally taken calls from me at ungodly hours to handle last minute and urgent requests and I have felt in the safest of hands throughout the entire project. On the rare occasion where R3Store couldn't accommodate our request, Jo was able to recommend an alternative - truly amazing client service! Jo's helpful nature, expertise, enthusiasm and laugh-in-the-face of challenges attitude fully deserves to be recognised and appreciated.

Pasolini's Project

Production Company:

L'Immagine Ritrovata Group

Synopsis

Accattone seems to be four decades away from his last film Salò; in between there are the Roman suburbs, the rewriting of the documentary, the films on the bourgeoisie, the reinvention of classicism, the Trilogy of life… the discovery of Citti and Davoli, and then Totò, Magnani and Mangano, to whom he offers unique and unedited roles, a new way of using music, places that cinema had never been able to look, from Matera to Cappadocia, from Sana'a to the remains of the classicism, a cinema of poetry that is also, always, a political, civil cinema that confronts the greats nodes of modernity.

Archival highlights

To celebrate the centenary of the birth of Pier Paolo Pasolini the Cineteca di Bologna as well as having shown Pasolini's main masterpieces to Italian cinemas with its Il Cinema Ritrovato al Cinema project has organized a series of insights on the director as the exhibition 'Folgorazioni figurative' as well as conferences, debates, retrospectives and publications dedicated to the poet-director.

A filmmaker condemned, insulted, smeared from the first to the last film today unanimously recognized as the artist who understood, decades in advance, the cultural genocide that was taking place in the face of everyone's silence. We are therefore proud to submit part of his restored films in the prestigious context of the FOCAL awards 2023.

Thamp̄

Production Company:

L'Immagine Ritrovata Group

Synopsis

Aravindan Govindan’s Thamp̄ is a poetic, allegorical film, that gently explores the transience of human relationships and the rootlessness of the marginalized through the ripples created in the bucolic existence of a village on the banks of a river by the arrival of a roving circus troupe. In cinéma-vérité style, Aravindan rounded up a troupe of actual circus artistes and travelled with them to the village of Thirunavaya on the banks of the Bharathapuzha river. For three days, the circus is the centre of attention of village life, but soon the villagers lose interest and move on to the preparation for a local festival and the circus troupe packs up and trundles away leaving no trace. Alienated from his own milieu, a young man from the village clambers on to the departing truck, hoping to escape his discontent by joining the circus troupe in their drifting existence.

Archival highlights

Aravindan Govindan was one of India’s most extraordinary filmmakers and a leading light of the New Indian Malayalam cinema of the 1970s and ‘80s. This film takes part in the group of films that mark the evolution of Malayalam New Wave cinema and is a landmark film.

The Draughtman's Contract

Production Company:

Dragon Post Production (Wales)

Synopsis

In 2022 BFI celebrated Peter Greenaway’s 80 birthday and the 40th anniversary of THE DRAUGHTSMAN’S CONTRACT (1982), Greenaway’s first major feature, originally funded and released by the BFI. As a key British work of the last 40 years, the film’s continuing visibility and availability to future audiences had been endangered by the limited nature of optical blow-up 35mm internegatives and for this reason, restoration was deemed necessary to allow director-approved 4K masters from the original camera negative and a final mix master to be produced in time for the celebrations, ensuring reproduction of the film’s exquisite vision in the highest quality. Original film elements are preserved by the BFI National Archive. The 4K remaster premiered in Venice Classics in the Venice International Film Festival 2022 and was then subsequently presented at the London Film Festival, before being released in UK cinemas and on Blu-ray to resounding critical acclaim.

Archival highlights

As a key British work of the last 40 years, the film’s continuing visibility and availability to future audiences had been endangered by the limited nature of optical blow-up 35mm internegatives. The remastering allowed director-approved 4K masters from the original camera negative and a final mix master to be produced in time for the celebrations, ensuring reproduction of the film’s exquisite vision in the highest quality. Considering that ‘visually, the film is one of the most elegant that’s ever been made in Britain’ according to Alexander Walker, the doyen of UK film criticism, we believe the restoration to have been of the utmost importance in terms of preserving British cinema.

Barbara Gregson for Meltdown: Three Mile Island

Synopsis

Meltdown tells the story (previously unexplored in documentary format) of three engineers who, in 1983, risked everything to blow the whistle about a looming nuclear apocalypse during the cleanup at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant. Their actions, which cost the men their careers, likely spared the eastern seaboard from calamity.

Archival highlights

Dealing with archival research is a challenge on any film or series. This one in particular was a very daunting project, as the event took place 42 years ago - and even though it was a national and global story, the coverage of it was at a very local level being that it took place in central Pennsylvania. On top of all of that, we began production just when the pandemic hit, so the archival research was a Herculean task, being that most services were closed and had limited access for many months. What was uncovered were hours of material that no one really had seen, and we were able to provide a context to a story that many new very little about. News was delivered quite differently in 1980, and we had the challenge of needing to provide great depth to the story and the controversy we were able to unravel. Barbara's diligence, skill and resourcefulness enabled us to create a very compelling and complete retelling of the event. The archival was invaluable and the depth of it was applauded by all that were involved.

Vanessa Gonzalez-Block for The U.S. and the Holocaust

Synopsis

THE U.S. AND THE HOLOCAUST is a three-part, six hour series directed by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein that examines America’s response to one of the greatest humanitarian tragedies of the twentieth century. With successful broadcasts in the United States and Europe, it is set to become a generational moment for viewers of all kinds, similar to Schindler’s List and Shoah.

Americans consider themselves a “nation of immigrants,” but as the Holocaust unfolded in Europe, the American government proved unwilling to open its doors to more than a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of desperate people seeking refuge. Combining first-person accounts of Holocaust survivors with interviews of leading historians and writers, this series delves deeply into the human consequences of public indifference, bureaucratic red tape and restrictive quota laws in the United States.

Inspired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s “Americans and the Holocaust” exhibition and supported by its historical resources, the film tackles urgent questions that confront democracies around the world today: what are our obligations to refugees seeking help, how should governments and individuals respond to regimes that manipulate the truth, and how do immigration policies reflect deep rooted tensions over national identity?

Archival highlights

A documentary film about the Holocaust presented unique problems of representation, which have been foregrounded by recent scholarly approaches to ways of seeing and understanding. As THE U.S. AND THE HOLOCAUST begins in Episode One, home movie footage made by a Jewish family in Europe shows scenes of daily life. A woman (secular or religious, we do not know), barely pregnant, smiles at the camera and looks out a window, while the narrator provides numbers and statistics – two very different, but equally essential – means of quantifying the enormity of loss wrought by Nazi terror.

The use of home movie footage, prevalent throughout the series and made possible through our extensive research in archives and personal collections in the United States and Europe, serves not only to humanize the victims, but to establish the primacy of perspective as a mode of understanding. The erasure of Jewish life can be measured only if we come to understand this absence as a presence, one that cannot be replaced but only reimagined through film.

Later in the series, in a much different scene, we see Jewish victims being forced to walk to a pit in Libau, Latvia and unceremoniously shot. A dog scampers and barks but few of the participants in the murders register any reaction. This is the only known documentary footage to depict taking of life during the so-called Holocaust by bullets, when Nazi agents and local collaborators murdered two million Jews as Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. But what haunts us about the footage is not merely the documentary evidence that it provides, but the type of knowledge that it obscures. Who filmed this horrific scene and what were their intentions? Were they participants in the murder or mere passersby? Were they documenting atrocities or celebrating them? Each possibility presents its own horrific implications. There is no space for moral comfort.

As viewers, we, too, become complicit as we witness these scenes. How do we watch such moments without contemplating our own passivity in response to terrible moments in the present? Would we have behaved differently than the murderers or the person doing the filming? In this sense, the visual language of the film pushes us to complete a circle, imagining events of the past as if we were participants. The purpose is not one of judgment but to allow us to contemplate the responsibility that comes with our knowledge, in the past and in the present.

Rich Remsberg & Gideon C. Kennedy for Light & Magic

Synopsis

The six-part series tells the story of the characters and techniques that began as a ragtag group of misfits assembled to work on George Lucas’ Star Wars and went on to build Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and the visual effects industry as we know it.

Archival highlights

I had the pleasure of working with Archival Producers Rich Remsberg and Gideon Kennedy on the 6-part Disney series Light & Magic. The show explores the formation and early days of Industrial Light & Magic, the ragtag VFX shop originally put together to create the special effects for Stars Wars that then went on to have an outsized influence on the film industry. Having worked with Rich in the past, I knew from the very start that I wanted him on the team for what we knew would be a massive archival lift.

From the beginning, Director Lawrence Kasdan envisioned this series to be closely focused on the people behind the story, not just the technology involved in these iconic moments in movie history. This actually made gathering archival a significantly bigger job, because it broadened the scope of our series and took it outside the realm of the “officially” documented, often sending it into the esoteric. Rich and his team recovered piles of home movies, photo albums, hometown news coverage, student films, and more. To give just a small example of their success, George Lucas, only one of our dozen+ main characters, has been rather well documented… That didn’t stop Rich from uncovering long unseen footage of Lucas before he was famous, a wonderful interview with his high school English teacher, and BTS of Lucas serving as Francis Ford Coppola’s “assistant” on The Rain People. And this was all on top of his delicate handling of childhood archive provided directly by the Lucas family.

In my own experience, the sheer volume of archival sources set this series apart. The show was fortunate enough to have Lucasfilm as a partner, so from the jump we had access to their archive which, while amazing, was woefully disorganized and frequently undigitized. But we were also intent on building a world larger than the studio lot, so there was an enormous amount of contextual archive to find, something for which Rich has a special knack. From industrial archives to local historical societies, no stone was left unturned. Additionally, our main story spanned decades, primarily from the mid-70s to the mid-90s, but with forays further into the past and present to dig into the lives of our characters and to explore the origins of VFX and the directions in which they are going today. Aside from original interviews and some finished film clips, the entire series was built and scripted from archive. It was a truly heavy lift, and done with grace and good humor.

For more than a year, Rich and crew would update the story and production team at least once a week on new finds and ongoing searches. At first, much of this search was self-guided or only loosely bound by general topics. These early results helped shape editorial and Rich showed a knack for thinking creatively and laterally, with constructive suggestions for the creative team. As the show took shape, our archive requests became increasingly specific, sometimes to the point of absurdity. Rich and Gideon always delivered. If anything, they left our director with the impression that all one had to do was imagine the perfect piece of archive, say it aloud in front of Rich Remsberg, and it would exist.

Along with this volume of archive comes a lot of clearance work, and there too they were methodical and extremely reliable, working with editorial down to the last minute when replacements were needed, and making sure everything was up to Disney’s exacting standards. He was truly an integral member of the team; without him the series would not be what it is.

Much more could be said about Rich and Gideon. I haven’t even gotten into the details of Rich’s nationwide quest to find original prints of the Star Wars trilogy (which he did, of course). Suffice it to say that I’ll be working with him again. He is an excellent archive producer, with a true joy for the calling and for the material. I highly recommend them for the Jane Mercer award.

Sincerely,

Christopher St. John

Jessica Berman-Bogdan for Moonage Daydream

Synopsis

MOONAGE DAYDREAM: A cinematic odyssey exploring Bowie's creative, spiritual and musical journey. From the visionary mind of Brett Morgen, Moonage Daydream features captivating, never-before-seen footage and performances spanning David Bowie's 54-year career.

Archival highlights

Moonage Daydeam was a five year, forensic, audio-visual research odyssey that included hundreds of research sources ranging from record company archives to private collections. Not only did Jessica locate a significant amount of never-before-seen material, she also supervised the technical aspects of transferring a great deal of this material to a digital medium.

Jessica established and maintained the production database which organized a few thousand elements and made it convenient for Brett to understand the array of material he had to work with.

Moonage Daydream is narrated completely in David Bowie's own words. Sourcing all of this narration was a feat in itself.

Moonage Daydream is a two hour and fifteen minute film comprised solely of third-party material. Not only did Jessica locate new Bowie-centric material, she brought in all of the tangential audio-visual storytelling elements which were considerable.

Unraveling an EDL is challenging on a good day. The dedication and focus Jessica exhibited in securing the master material deserves it's own level of recognition.

Making a critically acclaimed and financially successful experiential film about a rock and roll icon is a serious undertaking. Being the Archival Producer on that film deserves recognition of the highest honors, which is why I'm nominating Jessica Berman-Bogdan for FOCAL Researcher of the Year.

Watch Moonage Daydream trailer here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Directors Statement from Brett Morgen:

It is a honor to submit to you, Jessica Berman- Bogdan, for consideration as Researcher of the year. Jessica Berman Bogdan was the first person hired onto Moonage Daydream in 2016, and was the last person working on the film in 2022. Jessica was asked to organize and source the entirety of the David Bowie archives, possibly the largest collection of materials from any solo artist, with well over a million assets. The Bowie archive had amassed this collection without any source information. In addition, I asked Jessica to seek out every piece of media related to David Bowie not housed in the archive. This of course, was an impossible task that could never be fully realized. But Jessica approached it as a winnable challenge, as she always does, and found every know piece of media.

We did not have a staff of researchers and producers assisting Jessica. Jessica did all the research and archive work herself. Moonage Daydream was arguably one of the most challenging research assignments an archivist could be handed, and for her to have successfully completed the work by herself in a feat worth celebrating.

In addition to the inherent challenges with sourcing all known media, Moonage Daydream is the first archival film completed in Imax. After finding an element, Jessica had to search the globe for the most pristine masters, and oversee all transfers to 4k.

I have worked with Jessica for over twenty years. She is the only person to have worked on every film I have made starting with The Kid Stays in The Picture. We have collaborated in such groundbreaking archival films as Chicago 10, Crossfire Hurricane, Cobain:Montage of Heck, and Jane. I have witnessed and observed Jessica’s work and worth ethic over the years and she always delivers. But Moonage Daydream was something else. She told me on day one that this would be the most challenging job of her career, and the film she would be remembered for. And she approached it with more passion and integrity than I thought possible. She worked selflessly for years when we ran out of funds and was by my side every step of the way.

The work Jessica performed on Moonage Daydream was the most successful work of our 20 year collaboration. The film has been praised by audiences and critics around the world for its treatment of archival materials. Moonage Daydream was the first documentary to be released around the globe on the same day in IMAX…in over 40 countries, making this the biggest and most successful archival film of the year.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely, Brett Morgen

Lizzy McGlynn for Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power

Synopsis

The passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 represented not the culmination of the Civil Rights Movement, but the beginning of a new, crucial chapter. Nowhere was this next battle better epitomized than in Lowndes County, Alabama, a rural, impoverished town with a vicious history of racist terrorism. In a town that was eighty percent Black but had zero Black voters, laws were just paper without power. This isn’t a story of hope but of action. Through first person accounts and searing archival footage, LOWNDES COUNTY AND THE ROAD TO BLACK POWER tells the story of the local movement and young Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizers who fought not just for voting rights, but for Black Power in Lowndes County.

Archival highlights

When we first embarked on the journey of crafting Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power with director Sam Pollard, he was very eager to work with archival producer Lizzy McGlynn. Through their previous collaboration on Sam’s film, CITIZEN ASHE, and from Lizzy’s extensive and impressive work on SUMMER OF SOUL, Sam knew that if there was anyone who could tackle the seemingly impossible task of finding pertinent material for the film, it was her.

When we developed this film alongside Dema Paxton Fofang, we expected the film would have to be almost fully animated to account for what we assumed would be the lack of available material. As soon as Lizzy came onto the project, she embarked on an immediate deep-dive on relevant material, ranging from the freedom struggle, Kwame Ture/Stokley Carmichael, and the SNCC. When Lizzy then found unreleased footage that Jack Willis had documented, particularly about tenant farmers in Selma, Alabama shortly after the Voting Rights Act of 1965, we discovered a treasure of material that immediately transported the team in that time. Our editor Viri Leiberman was blown away with the successive troves of material that Lizzy unearthed from this project, and it unlocked an understanding of the context that put image to words of the powerful testimony and insight of the lived experience of our interviewees, informing a roadmap to crafting the film. Because of the wealth and specificity of the material, we were able to create an intimacy in the film that evokes a verite of an untold story that immediately becomes proximate and undeniable.

As we’ve shown the film around the country, our audiences frequently comment that the material brought them into a historic context that felt personal, transformative, and unforgettable.

One key example of this was when Lizzy unlocked the footage of Ruby Sales’ powerful and arresting testimony of the murder of Jonathan Daniels. This was the ticket to unlocking this pivotal scene in the film, and we cannot imagine the film’s gravity without it.

Lizzy’s unrelenting drive for digging deeper and finding the right materials was singular— but it was also her experience in cultivating relationships that allowed the possibility of negotiating clearances. Her methodology and ability to organize complicated logging systems made accessible our understanding of the material and ever a teacher and mentor, she generously trained up our emerging associate producers to support every aspect of the archival process - from research to organization to negotiation in an effective and streamlined way.

Lizzy has consistently stunned us and our audiences with the fruits of her labor, and we could not recommend her more highly for this well deserved recognition.

Apache Drums

Production Company:

NBCUniversal

Synopsis

The film follows the fast-talking gambler and gunman Sam Leeds (Stephen McNally) after being kicked out of a mining town in the New Mexico desert that is on the verge of becoming respectable. Sent into exile, Sam comes across the bodies of the dance hall girls massacred by a band of Mescalero warriors. He reluctantly returns to town to warn the residents of the impending threat.

Archival highlights

As part of Universal Pictures’ Centennial celebration in 2012, the studio announced an expanded effort to preserve and restore the Universal Film Library. Since then, the studio has restored over 100 feature films to help preserve the studio’s history.

The Apache Drums 4K restoration was made in collaboration with The Film Foundation, using the Nitrate 3-Strip (YCM) Original Negative as the primary source. Due to red layer registration issues, specifically seen in the whites of eyes, which appeared red, a black and white version of each reel was created and the YCM layers were painted out to remove the red, and retain the white color. This was the first time we used this methodology, and after experimenting with a few potential solutions, we found this gave us the best result. The picture and audio also underwent significant cleanup, due to the age of the elements used, but all of the challenges were surmounted using modern digital restoration tools and skilled technicians.

StoryTrails - The People's Metaverse

Director:

James Bennett

Producer(s):

Will Saunders, Amanda Murphy, Madeline Bates, Sarah Smyth, Kylie Bryant, Claire Cook

Archive Producer/ Researchers:

Rebecca Thompson, Nessa Dundon, Holly Elson, Vici Evans, Madeline Bates

Archival Sources:

BBC, BFI, National Library of Scotland (NLS), National Library of Wales (NLW), Media Archive Central England, North West Film Archive, Wessex Archive, Film London - London Screen Archives, Yorkshire Film Archive/North East Film Archive (YFA/NEFA)

Production Company:

StoryFutures, Nexus Studios, ISO Design, Produce UK, The Reading Agency, BFI, BBC, Uplands

Country of Production:

United Kingdom

Synopsis

StoryTrails was the UK’s largest immersive storytelling project to date. A unique touring experience of VR/AR and mixed reality experiences in 15 different towns and cities across the UK. National and hyper-local in equal measure from Swansea to Slough and from Bradford to Bristol, StoryTrails invited audiences to see their hometown differently.

Hidden histories were explored in augmented reality walking trails, immersive films about each town were experienced on giant cylcoramic screens installed into public libraries, and pop up VR hubs appeared that re-imagined film and tv archive to share new stories about Britain’s relationship with itself and its past.

StoryTrails brought together some of the UK’s most established media names alongside companies at the cutting edge of spatial storytelling. The lead partner was StoryFutures, the UK’s National Centre for Immersive Storytelling, working with the BBC, the British Film Institute, Niantic, Nexus Studios, Uplands Television, ISODesign, Produce UK and The Reading Agency. StoryTrails was funded by the UK government as part of a nationwide festival of creativity and innovation, Unboxed 2022.

The following is a case study that reflects how one of the project’s technical partners designed the augmented reality walking trails and activated archive in innovative ways:

https://nexusstudios.com/work/...

Archival highlights

StoryTrails uniquely unlocked our shared screen heritage by opening up access to over 50 archive sources from across all UK regions and nations as well as BFI and BBC national collections.

By re-situating 2D collections within 3D spatial storytelling, StoryTrails made archive available to creatives and communities to reinterpret, reanimate and reconnect with the heritage these collections represent.

StoryTrails made archive resonate with communities by blending archive with cutting-edge immersive technology and brilliant storytelling:

“I liked how it the virtual reality stuff made it feel like a game but then the archival footage made it feel like real life. It made it feel like this was for adults and children. Without the footage it would have felt more like a game and less like reality.” – (25 year old male, survey respondent, Blackpool)

ERA BBC Shakespeare Archive Resource

Archival Sources:

BBC Archive

Production Company:

ERA

Country of Production:

United Kingdom

Synopsis

The ERA BBC Shakespeare Archive Resource on the ERA website provides online access to a vast and diverse collection of over 1000 programmes, perfect for enhancing understanding of the Bard and his work. This comprehensive educational resource, which includes numerous productions of Shakespeare’s plays, as well as documentaries, comedies and interviews relating to this towering literary figure, offers educators and students easy access to the highest quality audio-visual content to support teaching, learning and research. The Archive is presented via a streamlined, searchable platform from which educators can easily find and access the specific Shakespeare content they need to support teaching, learning and research.

From Tony Richardson's classic 1955 production of Othello (the first ever to be televised) to contemporary interpretations such as Polly Findlay’s The Merchant of Venice, first broadcast in 2020, alongside insightful and enlightening critical analyses of Shakespeare’s work, the BBC Shakespeare Archive illustrates the immense educational value of broadcast recordings to the education sector.

The comprehensive range of productions available offers students access to diverse interpretations of the plays, from versions that recreate what are believed to be Shakespeare’s intended stagings, to modern re-imaginings with revolutionary approaches to staging and characterisation.

Archival highlights

The BBC Shakespeare Archive Resource supports educators and students examining Shakespeare and his works at all levels of education, bringing the archive collection to new audiences. For Anna Porter, an English teacher at a comprehensive in inner London, “having such an innovative and flexible resource to hand in the classroom helps to guide and encourage a more sophisticated and nuanced discussion amongst my pupils. I’ve used the Shakespeare Archive extensively teaching English at GCSE and A Level - it’s so helpful being able to show different productions and talk about differing performances and directors’ interpretations with a class.”

Using archive material outside of the traditional broadcast sphere adds great value to teaching and learning and can also be used to support teacher planning. The collection has been carefully curated to enable users to find the most appropriate content for their needs, using the platform’s advanced search tools and filters.

The depth and range of the available programming facilitates a fresh and diverse approach to understanding Shakespeare’s works. The sheer volume and variation of content provides an archive collection unrivalled by any other educational platform.

BBC Rewind

Director:

Peter Rippon, Helen Toland, Jake Berger

Producer(s):

Warren Bell, Ciaran Daly, Noel McCartney, Gordon Adair, Mark Macey

Archive Researchers/ Producer:

Darren McLarkey, Patricia Buller, Áine Quinn, Rónán Breathnach-Cashell, Kathy Wilford

Archival Sources:

BBC Archive

Production Company:

BBC

Country of Production:

United Kingdom

Synopsis

BBC Rewind fulfils a long-held BBC public service ambition to allow access to thousands of films from our news and current affairs archive, putting decades of social history at the fingertips of every UK citizen.

The project grew from a desire to maximise and optimise the burgeoning pool of digitised content available as a result of BBC Archive's future-leaning strategy. A fully-hybrid technology and editorial team was convened to develop best practice across the project, allowing exploration and utilisation of new and emerging technologies.

The team adopted an agile, iterative approach, launching initially as a pilot project to a small user base in public libraries. Live user data helped refine the site and a limited public launch followed, to allow for further user analysis and feedback.

The final product, launched summer 2022, includes significant new and enhanced features and film assets from across the UK. These 33,000+ archive clips are now interrogable via intelligent search of freshly enriched metadata, both editorially-driven, manual refinement (e.g. locations, categories), and innovative machine-learning tools (e.g. searchable speech-to-text transcripts). The addition of Rewind’s popular interactive map, as well as an overhaul of the original UX, resulted in a transformed website to mark BBC 100 celebrations.

Archival highlights

The BBC’s audio-visual archive is one of the richest worldwide, and a prized asset for the corporation. It has been built up over decades, thanks to the dedication, foresight and innovation of generations of archivists. This archive is the foundation stone for BBC Rewind, which itself is the culmination of years of dovetailing technical innovation and editorial experience in the BBC’s content, media management and software development teams.

Rewind was born out of an objective to establish increased value from archive digitisation work, to think beyond traditional platforms for exploitation, and to extend availability of the rich social history captured by BBC cameras.

Rewind gives access to content largely unseen by the general public since original transmission. Previously, access was limited to those working for the BBC, reaching audiences only through edited, usually brief, excerpts used within programmes, or through social media.

Rather than curating archive into narratives to present to audiences, Rewind innovates by offering audiences the ability to create their own personal journeys through the broadcast archive going back decades, at a scale previously impossible. As a by-product of this, it is now inspiring rich editorial seams and commercial opportunities, by dint of its very public availability.

In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats

Director:

Darren Emerson

Producer(s):

Ashley Cowan, Dan Tucker, Darren Emerson

Footage Archive Producer:

Darren Emerson

Archival Sources:

BBC Archives, Getty Archives, ITV Archives, Kinolibrary

Production Company:

East City Films

Country of Production:

United Kingdom

Synopsis

In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats is a fully immersive, room scale multi-sensory VR experience that takes audiences into one night in 1989, where they play the role of someone on the search for an illegal Acid House party.

Archival highlights

East City Films have been working in VR since 2015 and our focus has been very much around documentary story telling in this medium. As a creator of VR Darren Emerson has often explored ways of including archive imagery, video and audio into the worlds he is building. The aim is to seamlessly interweave archive within the environment that the audience inhabit, and to allow them to participate in a deeper documentary journey by finding joy and deeper contextual meaning through interaction and game mechanics. He uses projection mapping within VR environments, creates materials that can be picked up and examined, and finds ways of integrating archive sound sources that can be engaged with physically and aurally.

Chevron

Director:

Adam McKay

Producer(s):

Staci Robertsa

Footage Archive Producer:

Colleen Cavanaugh

Archival Sources:

Getty, FilmSupply, Shutterstock

Production Company:

STALKR, Hyper Object Inustries

Country of Production:

United States

Synopsis

A biting, satarical take-down of Big Oil, this spot juxtaposes upbeat, lifestyle-orientated stock footage with a voiceover that describes the terrifying reality of climate change and the indifference of the oil giants to the devastating effects of their industry.

BAFTA "Behind Every BAFTA"

Archive Researcher/ Producer:

Marina Sánchez, Katarina Stankovic, Alexandra Duxbury

Director:

Ali Dickinson, Jack Walker

Producer:

Bridie Scriven Brand

Archival Sources:

Getty, FilmSupply, Pond5

Production Company:

STALKR LTD, DCM Studios

Country of Production:

United Kingdom

Synopsis

In this dynamic film, BAFTA explore the power of cinema and celebrate the countless crew-members and artists who work tirelessly behind the scenes to create the films, TV shows and games that we love.

Narrated by the one and only Big Zuu, and featuring excerpts from Skyfall, Get Out and 1917, the unique narrative explores how BAFTA works to support, inspire and nurture the next generation of storytellers.

Victoria's Secret "Undefinable"

Archive Researcher/ Producer:

Alexis Everhart, Aaron Sharper, Brandi Self, Jeffrey Harland, Mike Kho, Matt Gee, Chelsea Zerbe, Itzel Sarabia, Jen Tam, Kadie Spinks

Director:

Harley Weir

Producer:

Georgia Rose

Archival Sources:

Getty, Filmsupply, UFC, Redbull

Production Company:

STALKR, AP Studio

Country of Production:

United States

Synopsis

The Victoria's Secret “Undefinable” campaign asks the question “Can you provide a definition for the word woman?” Their inspiring and diverse spokeswomen; Eileen Gu, Paloma Elsesser, Femita Ayanbeku, Rose Namajunas and Bella Hadid, among others answered through footage and photos of joy, achievement, strength, vulnerability, movement, struggle, pain, creativity, love, tenderness, power, beauty, fierceness and community and told us they are undefinable.

Shouting Down Midnight

Director:

Gretchen Stoeltje

Producer(s):

Richard Linklater

Footage Archive Producer:

Susanne Mason

Archival Sources:

The Texas Senate, The Texas Tribune, Dorothy Fadiman / Concentric Media, Amy Bench, Kind Motion Pictures

Production Company:

TIME Studios, Day Zero, Sugar23, Mainstay, MSNBC Films

Country of Production:

United States

Synopsis

In 2013, women shared real stories to help Texas State Senator Wendy Davis filibuster in defense of Texas women’s access to reproductive healthcare. As the capitol filled to capacity for the first time in its history, and people all over the world tuned in, Sen. Davis read testimony from women strongly opposed to the bill which would effectively force draconian, pre-Roe v. Wade conditions on women again. The bill ultimately passed, but not before Texas women - and the men who love them - made it clear that day that the Texas legislature had gone too far.

Forcing debate on the bill provided citizens a view of the process and a role in demanding accountability from their elected representatives. People were activated. Lives were transformed. History was made.

SHOUTING DOWN MIDNIGHT is a standalone production acquired for THE TURNING POINT series.

La Generazione Perduta

Director:

Marco Turco

Producer(s):

Francesco Virga

Archive Producer/ Researcher:

Marco Turco, Romilda Boffano, Laura Demetri

Archival Sources:

Home Movies, Studio Azzurro, Radiotelevisione Svizzera, CSC - Archivio Nazionale Cinema D'Impresa, Istituto Luce Cinecittà

Production Company:

MIR Cinematografica, Luce Cinecittà

Country of Production:

Italy

Synopsis

In the 70’s Italy is submerged by heroin. Carlo Rivolta, journalist among the most receptive of his generation, is among the first to describe this phenomenon from a new newspaper’s columns, “Repubblica”. He catches on the dynamics regulating the traffic. Puts the use in relation to the decline of the collective movements born from the revolution of 68’. He’s the voice of a free-falling generation. But awareness does not spare him.

Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story

Director:

Rowan Deacon

Producer(s):

Katie Hindley

Footage Archive Producer:

Peter Scott

Archival Sources:

BBC Motion Gallery / Getty Images, ITV Archive, Channel 4 / Screenocean, STV, Yorkshire Film Archive

Production Company:

72 Films

Country of Production:

United Kingdom

Synopsis

Jimmy Savile, a hugely famous British television and radio personality who rose to prominence in a career spanning decades in the entertainment industry. He had raised millions for charity, been knighted by the Queen and achieved national treasure status by the time he died on the 29th October 2011. His funeral was broadcast live on the BBC.

Since his death, independent investigations and those made by Scotland Yard uncovered that Savile had been a prolific and predatory sex offender, abusing hundreds of people, some as young as 5. To date, more than 450 allegations of sexual assault and abuse have been made against him.

From award winning company 72 films, the documentary examines, through extensive archive footage, Savile’s relationship with the British people, the establishment, the Royal Family and the media to understand how he managed to fool an entire nation for so long.

The Princess

Director:

Ed Perkins

Producer(s):

Simon Chinn, Jonathan Chinn

Archive Researcher/ Producer:

Sam Dywer, Gordon King

Archival Sources:

Getty (included BBC, ITN News, Sky News and NBC), ITV, AP Archive, Screenocean, ABC News

Production Company:

Lightbox

Country of Production:

United Kingdom

Synopsis

The Princess tells the story of Diana, Princess of Wales, exclusively through contemporaneous archival material.

The fractured relationship that followed Charles and Diana’s seemingly fairy-tale public

courtship and wedding in the early 1980s, the birth of two heirs to the throne, and Diana’s tragic and untimely death in 1997, were tabloid fodder for nearly two decades and made daily headlines. THE PRINCESS aims to reframe this story by drawing solely from archival audio and video footage to take audiences back to these era-defining events as they happened, and in doing so, allows the narrative to unfold as if it were in the present. THE PRINCESS offers an account of Diana’s story and the public response to it. The film stands as both a factual reckoning and a visceral submersion into Diana’s life in the constant, overpowering, and often intrusive glare of the media spotlight.

Through archival material, including audio of the public response to these events, the film also provides a reflection of society at the time. Audiences see how the overwhelming adoration, but also intense scrutiny of Diana’s every move and the constant judgement of her character, reveal the public’s own preoccupations, fears, aspirations and desires.

Solus

Director:

Jonathan Brooks

Producer(s):

Jonathan Brooks

Footage Archive Producer:

Jonathan Brooks

Archival Sources:

NASA

Production Company:

United Magic Studios

Country of Production:

United Kingdom

Synopsis

A lone astronaut aboard the ISS suddenly loses communication with Earth. He soon begins to experience a series of strange events that put him and the entire station at risk…

The Looking Glass Anthology

Director:

Sam Kwan, Eoin O'Callaghan, Paul McClintock

Producer(s):

Paul McClintock, Bronagh McAtasney

Archive Researcher/ Producer:

Paul McClintock, Bronagh McAtasney

Archival Sources:

UTV, BFI

Production Company:

Northern Ireland Screen, PRONI, BAI, DFC

Country of Production:

United Kingdom, Ireland

Synopsis

The Looking Glass Anthology is a collection of beautiful, thought-provoking, audio-visual works by a range of musicians and poets that capture what the archives mean to them on a personal level.

The four works in the collection include pieces from Matt McGinn, Rachael Boyd, Stephen Sexton and Eoin O'Callaghan. Each film is different in its own way, yet also complimentary of the whole.

The project challenges us to put ourselves in the shoes of those from the past and imagine what the future may be like, as well as to look within ourselves for answers, in this way being both retrospective and introspective. The pieces are thought provoking, uplifting, bittersweet, challenging, sentimental, heart breaking and inspiring.

Cost of Living

Producer(s):

Graham Relton

Editor(s):

Andy Burns

Film maker:

Andy Burns

Executive Producer:

Martin Hall, Lauren Stephenson, Steve Rawle

Research and Curatorial:

Graham Relton

Research Support:

David Parsons

Digitisation Support:

Montserrat Rovira Prieto

Archival Sources:

Yorkshire and North East Film Archives

Production Company:

Yorkshire and North East Film Archive, York St John University

Country of Production:

United Kingdom

Synopsis

“We have cut down. We have!”

“I'll make do without during the week, in order to be able to get three square meals at the weekends when the bairns are home.”

“When you look at the conditions…they're not fit for animals, never mind human beings.”

These are the words of those on the front line of a cost-of-living crisis, but this isn’t 2023, these are the voices of everyday people facing the tough choices fifty years ago, and now revealed as part of a timely short film that reflects on the pandemic cycles of boom and bust that continue to affect us.

The film expresses the fury and anger of generations whose essential needs for safe housing, secure work and full bellies go unfulfilled. With an uncanny sense of déjà vu, these found voices and images from the Yorkshire and North East Film Archives, evoke a past that feels uncomfortably contemporary.

Commissioned by York St John University’s Cinema and Social Justice Project the film exposes our collective memories of past crises, and the cries for social and economic justice that continue to ring so loudly in our ears today.

A History Of The World According To Getty Images

Director:

Richard Misek

Producer(s):

Thorvald Nilsen

Footage Archive Producer:

Richard Misek

Archival Sources:

Getty Images, Critical Past, NASA

Production Company:

Once Aurora

Country of Production:

Norway

Synopsis

Getty Images is one of the largest commercial image banks in the world. Many defining images of the last century – images that form a part of our collective memory – only exist behind Getty’s paywall. This film forms a meticulously crafted journey through some of the most significant moments of historical change caught on camera, and an impassioned commentary on how commercial image banks influence what we see. Through an intervention revealed at the end of the narrative, the film also forms a small but direct act of resistance to Getty’s privatization of the past.

Janet Jackson

Director:

Benjamin Hirsch

Producer(s):

Kevin Macdonald, Rick Murray, Janet Jackson, Randy Jackson, Brie Miranda Bryant

Archive Researchers/ Producer:

Hoe Swindells, Catalina Curbishley, Archie Carlisle, Gordon King, Sam Dwyer, Paul Bell, Camilla Wheeler

Archival Sources:

JDJ Entertainment, CBS Media Ventures, BBC Motion Gallery / Getty Images, ABCNews Videosource, Universal Music Group

Production Company:

Workerbee Documentary Films, AEC

Country of Production:

United Kingdom, United States

Synopsis

This is the intimate, no-holds-barred story of Janet Jackson. With a career that spans five decades, she is one of the best-selling, highest-earning female artists in history. But as the youngest member of one of the most famous musical dynasties, Janet’s story is laced with tragedy, controversy and upset. Now at the age of 55, as she returns to the limelight after becoming a mother for the first time, she is looking for answers. From the Superbowl to her brother Michael, no stone will be left unturned as she speaks openly and honestly, about life as a Jackson.

God Said Give 'Em Drum Machines

Director:

Kristian R. Hill

Producer(s):

Jennifer Washington

Archive Researcher/ Producer:

Nyeri Adolphus, Masha Mikhailova

Archival Sources:

Retro Video, Inc. and Nathaniel Morris, Detroit Historical Society, Kinolibrary, Norman "Normski" Anderson, Bell Media

Production Company:

Washington Hill Pictures, XTR

Country of Production:

United States

Synopsis

'God Said Give 'Em Drum Machines' is the story behind one of Detroit’s great contributions to world culture: Techno, the electronic music phenomenon created by Black artists in the 1980s that transformed dance music internationally and blossomed into the multi-billion dollar industry of EDM today.

Meet Me In The Bathroom

Director:

Will Lovelace, Dylan Southern

Producer(s):

Sam Bridger, Vivienne Perry, Marisa Clifford, Thomas Benski, Danny Gabai, Suroosh Alvi, Will Lovelace, Dylan Southern

Archive Researcher/ Producer:

Wyatt Stone, James McDonald

Archival Sources:

Nanci Sarrouf, Piper Ferguson, Andrew Einhorn, Joly Macfie, Patrick Daughters

Production Company:

Pulse Films, XTR, Vice, Utopia, Universal

Country of Production:

United States, United Kingdom

Synopsis

An immersive archival journey through the explosive New York music scene of the early 2000s. Meet Me in the Bathroom, tells the story of the last great romantic age of Rock’n’Roll through the prism of a handful of era defining bands; THE STROKES, LCD SOUNDSYSTEM, YEAH YEAH YEAHs, INTERPOL.

Nothing Compares

Director:

Kathryn Ferguson

Footage Archive Producer:

Jo Stones

Executive Producer:

John Reynolds, Charlotte Cook, Lesley McKimm, Lucy Pullin, Lisa Marie Russo

Produced by:

Eleanor Emptage, Michael Mallie

Archival Sources:

RTE Archive, BBC Motion Gallery and NBC News archives (via Getty), Blue Raincoat, INA/Rapido, AP Archives

Production Company:

SHOWTIME Documentary Films Presents, Tara Films and Ard Mhacha Productions Co-Production

Country of Production:

United States, Ireland

Synopsis

An exploration of Sinead O'Connor's rise and fall and her enduring cultural impact. By the age of 20, O'Connor was one of Ireland's brightest rising stars but her decision to use her fame as a platform to speak out on a number of controversial issues shifted her narrative from global stardom to worldwide condemnation. In a new interview, O'Connor reveals the abusive upbringing that left her feeling betrayed by both church and community and ultimately led her to find the therapeutic power of music.

Echoes of the North: Four Chapters in Time

Producer(s):

Jonny Best (Yorkshire Silent Film Festival)

Editor(s):

Andy Burns

Footage Archive Researcher:

Bob Geoghegan, Geoff Senior

Footage Archive Producer:

Graham Relton

Composer:

Neil Brand

Archival Sources:

Yorkshire and North East Film Archives, North West Film Archive, Archive Film Agency

Production Company:

Yorkshire and North East Film Archive, Yorkshire Silent Film Festival, Neil Brand

Country of Production:

United Kingdom,

Synopsis

Echoes of the North: Four Chapters in Time is a non-narrative film which brings together hundreds of archive clips from the 1890s to the 1920s.

Audiences are transported down the highways and byways of northern life in the early twentieth century - its industries, its wartime and festivals, holidays, family excursions, and huge, city-wide occasions. The production is set to new music for brass band, composed by Neil Brand and performed in its premiere performance (and audio recording) by Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band.

Echoes of the North consists of four impressionistic, flowing chapters, each structured around a thematic idea:

Chapter One: Rebuild, focuses on the industrial north and rebuilding of a nation after WWI, a period of great change in working life.

Chapter Two: Recharge, reflects the human desire to escape the grime and industry to reconnect with the land, sea, and nature.

Chapter Three: Remembrance, remembers the fallen of WWI, their bravery and sacrifice for their nation.

Chapter Four: Rejoice, sings of hope and joy, as people celebrate together as couples, families and communities.

1979 The Year of the Islamist Revolution

Director:

Jonathan Hacker

Producer(s):

Jonathan Hacker

Archive Researcher/ Producer:

Mungo Drake, Diana Sedgwick, Alex Kandauroy, Raphael Lefevre

Archival Sources:

AP, NBC, CBS, Getty Images, Reuters

Production Company:

OR Media Ltd

Country of Production:

United Kingdom

Synopsis

1979 The Year of the Islamist Revolution:

This is the gripping story of the cascade of momentous events that in just 12 months changed the Middle East and launched political Islam onto the world stage.

Episode 1 - January to June

The year began with the earthquake that was the Iranian Revolution, and its impact was soon felt across the region. In Afghanistan, rebels against the Communist government took courage from its success, as did Muslim Brotherhood members in Syria who launched their own uprising. Meanwhile, the success of President Sadat of Egypt at making peace with Israel also caused many on the left in his country to find inspiration in political Islam.

Episode 2 - June to December

Discontent at the pace of modernisation in Saudi Arabia would have momentous consequences. For over two weeks a group of extremists occupied the Grand Mosque of Mecca awaiting the arrival of the Mahdi. Meanwhile, discontented Shias rose in revolt. Over in Afghanistan, the success of rebels prompted a Soviet invasion. Together these events were laying the groundwork for the birth of al Qaeda and other Islamist organisations across the region. For many, Islam would soon become a byword for terrorism.

Normandie Will Not Sail Tonight (Normandie ne partira pas ce soir)

Director:

Tal Zana

Producer(s):

Julie Meigniez, Song Pham

Archive Researcher/ Producer:

Tal Zana, Julie Meigniez, Michael Dolan

Archival Sources:

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Atelier des Archives, Gaumont-Pathé Archives, Lobster Films, French Lines & Cie

Production Company:

Talweg

Country of Production:

France

Synopsis

Normandie, built in Saint-Nazaire in 1932, was the pride of France; the most beautiful, largest and fastest liner in the world. In the chaos of World War II, this grandiose dream is reduced to ashes in a matter of hours.

The destruction of Normandie stuns America. The official investigation finds it was a catastrophic accident. But in a paranoid atmosphere where fear of foreigners, spies, and saboteurs blurs the line between reality and fantasy, the shipwreck becomes the focal point of a whole nation’s dread.

Eighty years later, the myth of an attack refuses to die. Through unseen archives and personal documents, Normandie Will Not Sail Tonight revisits New York at the dawn of war — a New York inhabited by Hitchcock, real and fake spies, and a drifting French crew. It is an original exploration of America, in a time when conspiracy theories and rumors were not yet called “fake news”.

Meltdown: Three Mile Island

Director:

Kief Davidson

Producer(s):

Carla Shamberg, Michael Shamberg, Kief Davidson, Dan Levinson, Robert Fernandez

Footage Archive Producer:

Barbara Gregson

Archival Sources:

Veritone, Getty, WHP, US Department of Energy, WITF

Production Company:

Moxie Pictures, MAS Production

Country of Production:

United States

Synopsis

Meltdown tells the story (previously unexplored in documentary format) of three engineers who, in 1983, risked everything to blow the whistle about a looming nuclear apocalypse during the cleanup at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant. Their actions, which cost the men their careers, likely spared the eastern seaboard from calamity.

Gladbeck: The Hostage Crisis

Director:

Volker Heise

Producer(s):

Yan Schoenefeld

Archive Researcher/ Producer:

Janne Gärtner, Monika Preischl, Mona El-Bira

Archival Sources:

DFA, ZDF, RTL, ARD Aktuell, WDR/ Radio Bremen

Production Company:

Film Five GmbH

Country of Production:

Germany

Synopsis

Gladbeck, Germany, August 1988: Two gangsters rob a bank, take two hostages and embark on an odyssey across West Germany. They hijack a bus carrying 32 passengers. The police lose control of the situation as reporters get whiff of spectacle and inject themselves into a crime that blossoms into a media sensation. For three days, the eyes and ears of the entire country are glued to live television, live radio and newspapers – and before it’s all over, two innocent people are dead.

GLADBECK: THE HOSTAGE CRISIS tells an abysmal story exclusively using archive materials, including news, live reports, telephone recordings and amateur recordings made over the three days of the hostage rampage. The film is an unsparing look at the moment when news became merchandise and crime became spectacle – it was the beginning of an era that persists until today.

American Experience: Taken Hostage

Director:

Robert Stone

Producer(s):

Robert Stone

Executive Producer:

Cameo George

Co-Producer:

Nariman Hamed

Senior Series Producer:

Susan Bellows

Archive Researcher/ Producer:

Richard Lewit, Robert Stone, Nariman Hamid, Alan Andres, Elizabeth Klinck, Jeff Krulik

Archival Sources:

ABC News Video Source, Associated Press, Getty Images, Rush Media, National Archives (NARA)

Production Company:

A Robert Stone Productions Film for American Experience.

Synopsis

Unfolding like a political thriller, Taken Hostage tells the story of the Iran hostage crisis, when 52 American diplomats, Marines and civilians were held hostage at the American Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979. For the next 444 days, the world watched as the United States received a daily barrage of humiliation, vitriol and hatred from a country that had long been one of our closest allies. Told through the candid, personal testimony of those whose lives were upended by the action, the crisis would transform both the U.S. and Iran and forever upend the focus and direction of American foreign policy.

Taken Hostage, written directed and produced by Robert Stone, uses candid, eyewitness testimonies to tell the story of these dramatic, history-making events.

The Natural History of Destruction

Director:

Sergei Loznitsa

Producer(s):

Gunnar Dedio, Regina Bouchehri, Uljana Kim, Sergei Loznitsa, Maria Choustova

Footage Archive Producer:

Manuel Heller

Archival Sources:

German Federal Archives, PROGRESS.film, Imperial War Museums, AP Archive, British Pathé

Production Company:

LOOKS Filmproduktionen GmbH, Studio Uljana Kim, ATOMS & VOID

Country of Production:

Germany, Lithuania, Netherlands

Synopsis

Inspired by W. G. Sebald's book "Air War and Literature” and using only archival footage, the Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa explores the extent of the destruction of German cities in World War II and raises crucial ethical issues: Is it morally justifiable to use the civilian population as a tool in war? Is it possible to justify mass destruction with higher "moral" ideals? These questions are as relevant today as they were 80 years ago and their urgency is tragically evident in current political events.

Non-Aligned: Scenes from the Labudović Reels

Director:

Mila Turajlić

Producer(s):

Carine Chichkowsky, Mila Turajlić

Footage Archive Producer:

Mila Turajlić

Archival Sources:

Filmske Novosti, Radio-Televizija Srbije, United Nations Audiovisual Library

Production Company:

Poppy Pictures, Survivance, Restart, Kino

Country of Production:

Serbia, France, Croatia, Montenegro

Synopsis

Non-Aligned & Ciné-Guerrillas is a documentary diptych of two feature-length films that take us on an archival road trip through the birth of the Third World project, based on unseen 35mm materials filmed by Stevan Labudović, the cameraman of Yugoslav President Tito.

Non-Aligned re-traces the birth of the Non-Aligned movement, examining how a global project of political emancipation was constituted by the cinematic image.

Elizabeth: The Unseen Queen

Director:

Simon Finch

Producer(s):

Simon Finch

Archive Researcher/ Producer:

Briony Clark, Jo St Mart

Archival Sources:

AP Archive, British Movietone; British Pathe/ Reuters, Imperial War Museums, BBC, The Royal Collection Trust

Production Company:

BBC Studios

Country of Production:

United Kingdom

Synopsis

Throughout her life The Queen has always been in the public eye. But ever since she was a young girl the Royal Family have also filmed each other. These home movies were never intended to be seen by a wider audience, but for this unique collaboration between the British Film Institute and the BBC, all of that footage, much of it unseen and over 80 years old, was painstakingly restored and digitised. Together with the other largely unseen elements of The Royal Collection – rare newsreels and privately-commissioned films– this material formed the core of a BBC1 feature documentary to mark the Platinum Jubilee. Added to the mix were excerpts from the Queen’s previously unreleased letters, an original score, and innovative graphic sequences that helped integrate the archive. Furthermore, the film featured no interviews and instead used Elizabeth’s voice to carry us through the story, taken from speeches, interviews and an exclusive last recording session at Windsor Castle in May 2022. A rare feat of filmmaking which allowed us to get close to the subject using entirely archive content, this valedictory documentary on the late Queen’s early life forms the nearest we will ever come to her filmed autobiography.

Queen of the Deuce

Director:

Valerie Kontakos

Producer(s):

Ed Barreveld, Valerie Kontakos, Despina Pavlaki

Footage Archive Producer:

Erin Chisholm

Archival Sources:

Bondi and Don Walters, Something Weird Video, DistribPix, National Archives and Records Administration, Net-Film

Production Company:

Storyline Entertainment Inc., Exile Films

Country of Production:

Canada, Greece

Synopsis

From pre-WWII Greece to her meteoric rise through the Times Square pornography circuit in the 1970s, “Queen of the Deuce” tells the story of Chelly Wilson, trailblazing entrepreneur, unconventional matriarch and Holocaust escapist, who built an empire based on desire.

Seeds of Hunger - Ukraine 1933

Director:

Guillaume Ribot

Producer(s):

Estelle Fialon

Footage Archive Producer:

Vladilen Vierny

Archival Sources:

Agentur Karl Hoeffkes, British Film Institute, Kinolibrary, Getty Images, Lobster Films

Production Company:

Les Films du Poisson, Lobster Films

Country of Production:

France

Synopsis

Gareth Jones, a young Welsh journalist, smuggled into Ukraine in March 1933. The region then experienced a completely unprecedented famine, both in terms of its scale and its causes. This famine kept secret and decided by Stalin is political. On his return, the journalist alerts the world but lies and Soviet manipulation triumph. This is the story of the power of inquiry and speech against the state apparatus. This is the story of a mass lie and crime.

Nelly & Nadine

Director:

Magnus Gertten

Producer(s):

Ove Rishøj Jensen

Archive Researcher/ Producer:

Sebastian Claesson, Philippe van Meerbeeck

Archival Sources:

The Mousset Vos Family Archive, SVT - Swedish Television, The Henri Storck Foundation, BBC, Bundesarchiv Deutschland

Production Company:

Auto Images AB, Associate Directors, UpNorth Film

Country of Production:

Sewden, Belgium, Norway

Synopsis

Nelly & Nadine is the unlikely love story between two women falling in love on Christmas Eve, 1944, in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Despite being separated in the last months of the war, Nelly and Nadine manage to later reunite and spend the rest of their life together. For many years their love story was kept a secret, even to some of their closest family. Now Nelly’s grandchild, Sylvie, has decided to open Nelly and Nadine’s unseen personal archives and uncover their remarkable story.

Moonage Daydream

Director:

Brett Morgen

Producer(s):

Brett Morgen

Footage Archive Producer:

Jessica Berman-Bogdan

Archival Sources:

The Bowie Estate, BBC, Canal +, Reelin in the Years, Getty Images

Production Company:

Public Road Productions Inc.

Country of Production:

United States

Synopsis

Moonage Daydream illuminates the life and genius of David Bowie, one of the most prolific and influential artists of our time.

Told through sublime, kaleidoscopic, never-before-seen footage, performances and music, Brett Morgen’s (The Kid Stays in the Picture, Cobain: Montage of Heck, Jane) feature length experiential cinematic odyssey explores David Bowie’s creative, musical and spiritual journey. The film is guided by David Bowie’s own narration and is the first officially sanctioned film on the artist.

Fire of Love

Director:

Sara Dosa

Producer(s):

Sara Dosa, Shane Boris, Ina Fichman

Footage Archive Producer:

Nancy Marcotte

Archival Sources:

Images de L’Est, l’INA, Sonuma, RTS, NBC Japanese Broadcaster

Production Company:

National Geographic Documentary Films, Sandbox Films Production, Intuitive Pictures, Cottage M Production

Country of Production:

United States

Synopsis

From National Geographic Documentary Films comes the extraordinary love story of intrepid

French scientists Katia and Maurice Krafft, who died just as explosively as they lived —

capturing the most spectacular imagery ever recorded of their greatest passion: volcanoes.

Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes

Director:

James Jones

Producer(s):

Serhiy Solodko, Sasha Odynova

Footage Archive Producer:

Joanna Marshall

Archival Sources:

Bordenyuk, Getty Images, Kaleidoscope, Gosfilmofond, CNN

Production Company:

Top Hat Productions Ltd

Country of Production:

United Kingdom

Synopsis

The story of the Chernobyl nuclear accident is told through archive shot by multiple Eastern Block camera crews at the time of the disaster. Interviews of those who were there at the time were laid under the archive.

The archive was shot at great risk in the hours, days, weeks and months after the accident by cameramen positioned inside the plant. These cameramen lived side by side with the “liquidators” who went to incredible and often fatal lengths to try to prevent another explosion. We also show footage of the liquidators in hospital where many suffered horrific deaths caused by exposure to radiation. Though many of the rescue workers died, a surprising number who appear prominently in the footage are still alive today. We used interviews with people involved in the original key moments of the footage. A lot of the interviews were freshly recorded, others from archive.

We also feature archive of the town of Pripyat, the closest to the nuclear plant, both before and after the disaster. Through the archive and interview we will tell the tale of the people moved and the effects on their lives.

The Andy Warhol Diaries

Director:

Andrew Rossi

Producer(s):

Maya Rudolph, Ryan Murphy, Alexis Martin Woodall, Scott Robertson, Andrew Rossi, Josh Braun, Dan Braun, Stanley F. Buchthal, Adam Sylvan McGill, Stacey Reiss

Archive Researchers/ Producer:

Lisa Janssen, Gabriella Ortega Rickets, Jane E. Tucker

Archival Sources:

Andy Warhol Foundation, Individual photographers' estates, Numerous living individual photographers, Independent filmmakers and artists

Production Company:

Abstract Submarine LLC

Country of Production:

United States

Synopsis

The Andy Warhol Diaries is an American documentary streaming television limited series from executive producer Ryan Murphy, based on the 1989 non-fiction book of the same name by Andy Warhol, as edited by Pat Hackett. The series features the famed pop artist narrating his own diary entries through the employment of AI (voiced by Bill Irwin).

Written and directed by Andrew Rossi the series unfolds in a collage of found and recreated footage, based primarily on diary entries expressing Warhol’s great love for three main protagonists: the interior designer Jed Johnson, with whom he spent 12 years; the Paramount Pictures vice-president Jon Gould; and the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat.

The series utilized a stunning amount of archival materials, over 5000s individual clips and photographs ranging from the artist's personal archive to major photographer's estates.

A Czechoslovak Fairy Tale (Un conte de fée tchécoslovaque)

Director:

Christian Paigneau

Producer(s):

Julie Meigniez, Vincent Gazaigne, Simona Kadrnková, Václav Kadrnka

Archive Researcher/ Producer:

Christian Paigneau, Julie Meigniez

Archival Sources:

NFA (Prague National Film Archive), SFU (Slovak Film Institute), SVT (Swedish Television), Ceska Televize, INA

Production Company:

Talweg, Sirius Films, ARTE G.E.I.E., Slovenský filmový ústav

Country of Production:

France, Czech Republic, France, Slovakia

Synopsis

The Czechoslovak New Wave was born in the early 1960's out of the dream of communist authorities to develop their own Hollywood in Central Europe. But soon the creature escaped its master’s control. The New Wave would invent a cinema obsessed with reality, as poetic as critical, reveal great filmmakers (Věra Chytilová, Jiří Menzel, Jan Němec, Jaromil Jireš, Milos Forman), and claim freedom that would resonate well beyond the country’s borders.

Meanwhile, Jan Procházka, a young communist writer, became in no time scriptwriter and producer of films. Soon, Jan Procházka’s impressive ascension merged with the New Wave dynamics, which changed his artistic destiny.

"A Czechoslovak Fairy Tale" recounts how this man and this cinematic movement each tried to speak out.

Sidney

Director:

Reginald Hudlin

Producer(s):

Oprah Winfrey, Derik Murray, Reginald Hudlin

Senior Archive Producer:

Bianca Cervantes

Archive Executive:

Charles Hannah

Archive Producer:

Matthew Van Deventer

Archival Sources:

Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, HARPO, Stud Terkel Archive, WNET: SOUL! / The Great American Dream Machine (Belafonte Enterprises), Global Image Works / Dick Cavett Show

Production Company:

Apple Original Films, Harpo Productions, Network Entertainment

Country of Production:

United States, Canada

Synopsis

From producer Oprah Winfrey and directed by Reginald Hudlin, this revealing documentary honors the legendary Sidney Poitier and his legacy as an iconic actor, filmmaker and activist at the center of Hollywood and the Civil Rights Movement. Featuring candid interviews with Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Robert Redford, Lenny Kravitz, Barbra Streisand, Spike Lee and many more, the film is also produced by Derik Murray, in close collaboration with the Poitier family.

Cesária Évora

Director:

Ana Sofia Fonseca

Producer(s):

Ana Sofia Fonseca

Archive Producer/ Researcher:

Ana Sofia Fonseca Rosa, Teixeira da Silva

Archival Sources:

RTCV – Rádio Televisão de Cabo Verde, Videoteca Municipal de Lisboa, RTP – Radiotelevisão de Portugal, Institute Marquês de Valle Flor, Archive of Lusafrica

Production Company:

Carrossel Produções

Country of Production:

Portugal

Synopsis

World renowned performer Cesária Évora in a new and intimate documentary. With previously unseen footage and insights into the singer's life, the film follows her struggles and success. Cesária's voice took her from poverty to stardom but her only dream was to be free.

The Figo Affair: The Transfer that Changed Football

Director:

David Tryhorn; Ben Nicholas

Producer(s):

Jonathan Rogers, Max Dobbyn, Marie-Denise Dormis

Footage Archive Producer:

Andres Aristizabal

Archival Sources:

TVE (Televisión Española), TV3 (TV Cataluyna), Antena 3, SIC, TVI

Production Company:

Pitch International

Country of Production:

United Kingdom

Synopsis

Luís Figo was the most coveted player in world football when he took to the balcony of the gothic Palau de la Generalitat, the home of Catalonia’s president, on a balmy summer’s evening in 1998. Wearing his club suit, with his hair dyed blue and red, he celebrated Barcelona’s latest league title in front of a delirious crowd by grabbing the microphone and chanting: “blancos, llorones; felicita las campeones!” “Real Madrid, you cry- babies, hail the champions!” Two years later he took to the field at the Camp Nou, Barcelona’s stadium, wearing the white of Real Madrid. He was the first player to join Real’s fabled “Galácticos” revolution under Florentino Pérez. He was the most expensive and best-paid footballer in the world. He was the most hated man in Catalonia.

With access to Luís Figo and the men who brokered the deal that shattered the transfer record, divided a nation and shaped modern football; The Figo Affair reveals the engrossing story of how his move came to pass, a twisting tale of backroom deals, a truly historic sporting rivalry, a deep cultural divide, and a pig’s head.

Gazza

Director:

Sampson Collins

Producer(s):

Gareth Dodds, Will Kane, Tom Wood, Vaughan Sivell

Archive Researchers/ Producer:

Sampson Collins, James RM Hunt, Paula Desiderio, Richard Wiseman, Ollie Duffin

Archival Sources:

Getty/ BBC, ITV, North One, BBC, Kinolibrary

Production Company:

Haviland Digital, Mark Stewart Productions, Western Edge Pictures

Country of Production:

United Kingdom

Synopsis

GAZZA is a deeply personal portrait of Paul Gascoigne, one football's most famous tragic heroes. It is also an insight into 20 years of modern British history as it charts the creation of the media's lust for celebrity news stories.

Told solely with contemporaneous archive, GAZZA gives a startling new perspective on the profoundly immoral and illegal lengths the tabloid press went to in order to gain access to Paul's private life and manipulate it for their own gain.

37 Words

Director:

Dawn Porter, Nicole Newnham

Producer(s):

Clare Smith Marash, Nicole Newnham, Dawn Porter, Camille Servan-Schreiber, Alexandria Cooper, Spencer Barry, Chantre Camack, Scott Siebers, Sharee Stephens

Archive Researcher/ Producer:

Rachel Antell, Jennifer Petrucelli

Archival Sources:

Getty Images, NBC News Archives, Associated Press, ABC News Videosource, CBS News Archives, Veritone, Historic Films Archive LLC

Production Company:

ESPN Films, Trilogy Films, Industrial Media

Country of Production:

United States

Synopsis

“37 Words” tells the inspiring story of Title IX – the hard-fought battle to push for equal rights in education and athletics; the decades-spanning effort to nullify its impact; and the rippling impacts of the landmark civil rights law that continue to resonate today. Featuring Billie Jean King, Gloria Steinem, Abby Wambach, Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, Barack Obama and legendary figures in sports and politics that played a critical role in passing and maintaining the legislation.

The four-part series charts the spectacular transformation that 37 words have inspired in American culture and the lives of women, as well as the many ways in which the spirit of this bold law has yet to be fully realized.

Una Squadra (The Team)

Director:

Domenico Procacci

Producer(s):

Fandango: Domenico Procacci, Fandango: Laura Paolucci, SKY: Roberto Pisoni, SKY: Dino Vannini, SKY: Gaia Pasetto

Footage Archive Researcher:

Luca Rea, Fandango EP: Eleonora Savi

Archival Sources:

Rai Teche, GettyImages / BBC Sport, Kinolibrary, British Pathé / Reuters, Archivio Luce

Production Company:

Sky Italia, Luce Cinecittà, Fandango

Country of Production:

Italy

Synopsis

We are talking about the years from 1976 to 1980. The sport is tennis. We are in Italy and the trophy we are battling for is the Davis Cup. The team is made up of four players: Adriano Panatta, the rockstar, Corrado Barazzutti, Mr. Second Best, Paolo Bertolucci, the sidekick and Tonino Zugarelli, the working-class hothead.

During this 5-year period they reached the final four times, only winning once, in 1976 against Chile. A political storm swirled around that final, with enormous controversy over the opportunity to go and play with the colors of Italy in Chile under the dictator Pinochet. The finals reached but eventually lost are in 1977 against Australia, in 1979 against the USA and in 1980 against Czechoslovakia. In the first two outings, 1976 and 1977, the team has as their non-player captain an Italian tennis legend, Nicola Pietrangeli, who only a few years earlier retired from competitive activity. He would be sacked by his own team after the 1977 defeat, and he still speaks of it as the greatest betrayal of his life. He is the fifth protagonist in our story. Above all, we talk about a team.

Villeneuve Pironi

Director:

Torquil Jones

Producer(s):

John McKenna, Torquil Jones

Archive Producer/ Researcher:

Richard Wiseman, Cristina Miro, Paola Desiderio, Beba Gabanelli

Archival Sources:

Formula 1, Fiat Ferrari, Motorsport Images, Andrew Mariott, Various Sourced Private Individuals' Archive Materials

Production Company:

Noah Media Group, Sky Studios

Synopsis

Villeneuve Pironi tells the astonishing story of Canadian legend Gilles Villeneuve and French star Didier Pironi, two fearless Ferrari Formula 1 racing drivers, forever torn apart by a historic and hugely controversial moment in time.

Forty years on from the infamous and tragic 1982 Formula One season, the families of Canadian icon Gilles Villeneuve & French superstar Didier Pironi unite for the first time to reveal one of sport’s greatest untold stories.

In the midst of modern racing’s most dangerous era, two daring Ferrari teammates were battling for the world championship, but at the San Marino Grand Prix Pironi broke an unwritten agreement, “stealing” victory from his close friend Villeneuve on the final lap.

This act of “betrayal” broke a sacred bond and their relationship soon spiralled into a vengeful rivalry. Villeneuve and Pironi would never speak to each other again, and within a matter of weeks tragedy would strike.

In a plot laden with mystery and intrigue, each compelling twist and turn is revealed as the film uncovers the truth behind that unwritten agreement on the last fateful lap.