Next year EYE holds an international conference on the use of colour in silent films entitled ‘The Colour Fantastic: Chromatic Worlds of Silent Cinema’. From 29-31 March 2015, an international group of specialists will discuss the results of recent research into the use of colour in the years 1895-1935. The event includes the screening of a number of restored silent films.
Twenty years ago the workshop ‘Disorderly Order’: Colours in Silent Film took place in Amsterdam. Since then, major advances have been made in our knowledge of the use of colour in the nascent and early cinema and it is now time to present the latest findings.
From 29-31 March an international group of film specialists and archivists will focus on the silent film era and the special features of the use of colour in that period. The programme includes contributions by keynote speakers, presentations by restorers and scientific research reports by international experts. Among the topics that will be addressed are ‘the avant-garde and the abstract use of colour’, ‘early animated films and colour’, and ‘aesthetics and cultural context of colour in the silent film’.
A new publication, Fantasia of Color, will also be presented at the conference. This work by film scholars Giovanna Fossati (senior curator EYE, Professor of Film Heritage and Digital Film Culture, University of Amsterdam), Tom Gunning and Yoshua Yumibe is published by Amsterdam University Press. The conference programme includes the screening of a number of restored silent colour films.
We welcome papers and panel proposals by professionals (max. 300 words), to be submitted before 2 September 2014 via colourfantastic@eyefilm.nl. Proposals for papers on the basis of EYE’s website ‘Open Images’ (eye.openbeelden.nl), are also invited.
The conference is organized by EYE/University of Amsterdam (Giovanna Fossati), Tom Gunning (University of Chicago), Leverhulme Trust Research/University of Bristol (Sarah Street) and Yoshua Yumibe (University of St. Andrews/Michigan State University).
Ref: https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/news/the-colour-fantastic-conference-and-publication.