“The Universal documentary feature ‘Ferrari: Race To Immortality‘ revolves around five Formula 1 drivers of the late 1950s (Eugenio Castellotti, the Marquis Alfonso de Portago, Luigi Musso, Peter Collins and Mike Hawthorn) who all, extraordinarily, died tragically within just twenty-two months of each other,” archive researcher Richard Wiseman says. “Four of the five died at the steering-wheel of a Ferrari, whilst the fifth was killed on the public road, having just won a World Championship for the Scuderia. Individually and collectively, their life-stories are overwhelmingly unknown to 21st century audiences, and one of the reasons for this is that very little footage of them on film was thought to exist.” (more…)
archive research
“Josephine Baker: An American in Paris” wins Archive Valley Prize at #SSD17
As this year’s edition of Sunny Side of the Doc came to a close, Archive Valley had the pleasure of presenting an award to one of the historical documentary projects pitched during the History Pitch Session.
The quality of the projects extremely high across the board, so we faced an extremely difficult choice. However, one project stuck out as we felt that not only did it approach its subject from a new angle, but the team is also undertaking extensive archive research that we felt was a great match to our community and the passion for archives we all share. (more…)
The Summer of Archives: An Update from Archive Valley
It’s been a busy few months at Archive Valley, and as we get ready to spend the next month hitting the road to meet producers, researchers and film archivists from around the world, here’s a bit of what we’ve been up to and a look at what’s ahead. (more…)
‘I Am Not Your Negro,’ Archive Footage and Race in America
A historical documentary with contemporary echoes
I Am Not Your Negro was conceived after Gloria Karefa-Smart (born Gloria Esther Baldwin) had handed a letter over to Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck. The letter from her brother, famous African-American writer James Baldwin, to his literary agent spoke of the manuscript he was working on entitled Remember This House. The text aimed to shed light on the Civil Rights era, one of the greatest struggles in American history and focused on three of its leaders and friends of Baldwin: Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X. The thirty-page memoir remained unfinished as Baldwin passed away on December 1987. (more…)
Illustrating the Archive: Didier Lefèvre and ‘The Photographer’
© Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre, Frédérique Lemercier, Le Photographe (France: Dupuis, 2010).
From the vibrant city of Peshawar to the remote town of Zaragandara in Afghanistan, The Photographer transports the reader into war zones where fascination and indignation mingle together. The book tells the true story of photojournalist Didier Lefèvre whose job was to cover a three-month MSF (Doctors without Borders) mission in the summer of 1986. Following the Soviet invasion of 1979, countless Afghans suffered from the ravaging conflict. MSF was there to rescue the helpless and heal innocent citizens who were injured. In this engaging graphic novel, war is not glamorous. The reader witnesses the atrocity engendered by war as Lefèvre walks from village to village, observing and recording the distress of innocents. Guibert shows the conflict through the lens of a vulnerable photographer, for whom danger is omnipresent and whose fear and tension are highly perceptible. As immersive as it is intense, The Photographer is in line with other classic graphic novels such as Maus (1986-91), Palestine (1993-95), and Persepolis (2000-03). (more…)