Tuesday, October 18, 2011

[visual-media:356] The Davide Turconi Project

As part of the thirtieth anniversary celebration of Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, the festival is proud to present the launch of the Davide Turconi Project:

           http://www.progettoturconi.it/

The project is based upon the 35mm nitrate film frame clippings collected by Italian film historian Davide Turconi (1911-2005) from the Josef Joye Collection in Switzerland and from other unidentified sources. As a tribute to Turconi's belief that knowledge is a treasure to be shared, the collection is being made available for free online with the financial support of Le Giornate del Cinema Muto and the Cineteca del Friuli.
 
The Turconi Project is the result of twelve years of ongoing work (2000-2011). The collection consists of 23,491 clippings in total (usually two to three frames each) that have been preserved and also digitally scanned into an online database. The vast majority of the frames cover the early years of cinema (from ca. 1897–1915); however, some items in the collection represent films produced as late as 1944. Most of the original frames are now preserved at George Eastman House in Rochester, New York; smaller groups of frames are held by other institutions. Through the Turconi database, scans of the frames are represented in a single digital repository. This database is the largest of its kind currently available and provides a unique resource for film scholars, enthusiasts, archivists, and curators. We hope you will take advantage of this new tool for film history.
 
A database of this magnitude is necessarily a work in progress. Many items are still awaiting identification, and errors or ambiguities may be found in the information provided for the entries. If you have corrections or feedback, please contact us through the website or at turconi.collection@gmail.com.

Sincerely, 

Paolo Cherchi Usai
The L. Jeffrey School of Film Preservation and George Eastman House
&
Joshua Yumibe
Department of Film Studies, University of St Andrews

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