La Rassegna Internazionale del film scientifico-didattico dell'Università di Padova (1956-1975)
| Autor: | Buzzo, Erica |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2013 |
| Předmět: |
Virgilio Tosi
Settore L-ART/06 - Cinema Fotografia e Televisione Encyclopaedia Cinematographica film didattico (per l'insegnamento superiore) International Scientific Film Association (I.S.F.A.) Associazione Italiana di Cinematografia scientifica (A.I.C.S.) Bucranio Étienne-Jules Marey cinema scientifico film di ricerca film di divulgazione film didattico (per l'insegnamento superiore) International Scientific Film Association (I.S.F.A.) Associazione Italiana di Cinematografia scientifica (A.I.C.S.) Research Films Service du Film de Recherche Scientifique Centri di Cinematografia scientifica universitari Virgilio Tosi Giuseppe Flores D'Arcais Étienne-Jules Marey Jean Painlevé Encyclopaedia Cinematographica Single Concept film Bucranio Service du Film de Recherche Scientifique Jean Painlevé Centri di Cinematografia scientifica universitari Research Films Giuseppe Flores D'Arcais film di divulgazione cinema scientifico film di ricerca Single Concept film L-ART/06 Cinema fotografia e televisione |
| Popis: | The first edition of the Rassegna Internazionale del film scientifico-didattico (International festival of scientific and educational film) held by Padua University takes place in the fall of 1956. It was conceived as an annual meeting, and it was developed in collaboration with the Venice International Film Festival. It was organized for eighteen editions up to 1975. For a week a year, the theater Ruzante (in Padua) opened its doors to the screenings of films in a competition (an average of sixty), divided into sections which correspond to different subject areas. For a few years it was subdivided into three categories, as it follows: research film, scientific documentation film and educational film for teaching. At the end of each edition, the international Jury awarded the Bucranio d'oro to the best film of the year and also various Bucrani d'argento, Bucrani di bronzo, and other special mentions to the best films within the different disciplinary fields. Beginning from these information, the research proposal has run to trace, at least in part, to the history of this festival. The first chapter of the thesis deals with the historical reconstruction of the early years of the Rassegna – from the beginning (1956) to the sixth edition (1961) – through the documents kept at the General Archive of Palazzo del Bo (Padua University) and the few news articles published in some of the magazine of that time. Enclosed to the first chapter, the research provides three appendices, which relate to composition of the eighteen Juries, the list of prizes awarded each year and the illustration by graphs of the variable distribution of the films into sections and categories throughout the entire life of the event. In the second chapter the research opens up more prospects: scientific and educational cinematography leads to widen horizons, on the one hand, in consideration that it partially sinks its roots in the experimental activity of the pioneers at the turn of nineteenth and twentieth century, on the other hand, noting that this kind of film tends to resist universal and decisive definitions. It is especially in the two principles of Étienne-Jules Marey – with which the French physiologist states that the human senses are insufficient to capture the essence of science and language to express it – that we could identify the scientific paradigm that has led to the birth of cinema (among other historian, Virgilio Tosi says that the cinema was born as necessary to the need of science). The second chapter discusses therefore the complexity of the various interpretations that have realized the potential of the film medium in the fields of scientific research, education and popularization. The potential was mainly addressed to the challenge with the invisible. Specific technique such as X Ray Cinematography, Cinemicrography, High-Speed Cinematography, Time-Lapse Cinematography developed by using the camera as a scientific means. The movement of phenomena has been the reason why scientists and filmmakers unanimously thought scientific and educational films were necessary. Thus the film became a scientific documentation of phenomena otherwise invisible and not comparable. On the contrary, objectivity and emotionality opened dilemma that tended to remain irreducible to an interpretation universally shared. Individual points of view ranged from banning the emotional factor from functional elements of the effectiveness of a scientific and educational film to admitting that pure objectivity is neither possible nor desirable. The Jury of the Rassegna perceives the problem of finding a universal criterion to evaluate a scientific and educational film from the early editions. However the scale of values adopted by the same Jury in those early years betrays heterogeneity of valuation parameters (scientific content, technique, educational function, property and linguistic coherence, expressive intensity, poetic value if any). So, the definition of what is the scientific and educational film remains uncertain. On the contrary, institutions such as the Encyclopaedia Cinematographica promote a clear formula for identifying that kind of film in which objectivity is a prerequisite. With the third chapter we intended to continue to study the Rassegna as one of the interpreters of the socio-cultural needs of the mid-fifties, and to show some facts-symbol, such as the institution of centers and associations internationally active that testify of the increasing attention given to the scientific and educational cinematography. The activities of the International Scientific Film Association (I.S.F.A., 1947) fit the Rassegna of the Padua University within a reality that, outside Italy, has already found institutional forms of production and promotion of scientific and educational film. It was done together with that of some centers in Europe (remember, for instance, the Institut für den Wissenschaftlichen Film in Göttingen, born in 1953) or in the world (think of the National Film Board of Canada, founded in 1938). With the foundation of the Rassegna – a legacy of the International Festival of Science and Art Documentary Films (collateral section of the Venice International Film Festival, held for four editions, from 1950 to 1953) – the axis Padua-Venice becomes a crossroad that has no parallel in the history of scientific and educational film festival. The Center of scientific cinematography at the University of Padua was founded in 1961 and it was in charge, above all, of the organization of the annual festival, of the preservation and distribution of the copies of the award-winning films, according to the regulation of the Rassegna. Two years later, in 1963, the Italian Association of Scientific cinematography (A.I.C.S.) was founded. The fourth and the final chapter of the thesis is dedicated to the sixties and early seventies, more specifically, to the birth of the A.I.C.S., to its publishing activities carried out through its own Bulletin and to some of the Italian filmmakers and scientists which the thesis remembers because protagonists both the Association and the Rassegna. On the occasion of the latter, the A.I.C.S. assigns its own prize since its foundation, while it is only since 1973 that the Association will replace the Commission of the scientific cinematography of the National Research Council, representative for Italy within the I.S.F.A since 1949. The report about the Center of scientific cinematography at the University of Padua – published after the congress Personnel in charge of European university organization for scientific cinematography, research and audio-visual media (Padua, 1975) – closes the last chapter. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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