FLEFF, Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute, and the University of St Andrews (Scotland) Playlist launch three-way collaboration to showcase online media projects on COVID-19 for International Forum in Taipei
The Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF) has launched a three-way international collaboration with the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (TFAI) and the Centre for Screen Cultures Playlist initiative at the University of St. Andrews Scotland to showcase playlists about online media projects about COVID-19.
FLEFF codirector Patricia Zimmermann and FLEFF new media curator Dale Hudson from New York University Abu Dhabi have curated three separate playlists featuring nearly 60 projects from across the globe on COVID-19 for the U of St. Andrews playlist initiative. The playlist initiative is spearheaded by Leshu Torchin at the Centre for Screen Cultures at University of St. Andrews.
Zimmermann and Hudson will present one of the keynote addresses at the TFAI’s international forum, “The Multitudes Prevail: History and Memory in the Participatory Media Landscape,” October 17 and 18 in Taipei, Taiwan.
Their presentation, which theorizes and analyzes international new media works featured on their curated playlists, is entitled “The Urgency of Participatory Small Media on COVID-19 Pandemic.”
Their three extensive playlists will be programmed as part of the international forum. The forum will also feature other Centre for Screen Cultures playlists.
Taiwan Docs, part of TFAI, will curate playlists of Taiwanese online projects about COVID-19 as Taiwan Docs, part of TFAI, will later curate playlists on Taiwanese documentary.
Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute
Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (TFAI) is the only administrative institution in Taiwan dedicated to preserving national audiovisual heritage. TFAI’s core mission is to preserve, restore, research and promote Taiwan’s audiovisual heritage, aiming to make its holdings available to the public. As a member of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF), TFAI has over 40 years of history, formerly known as “Taiwan Film Institute (TFI)” and “Chinese Taipei Film Archive (CTFA)”.
TFAI’s vaults hold around 20,000 titles of film prints and more than 200,000 film and audiovisual related material. Since 2008, TFAI (then CTFA) began undertaking the tasks of film preservation and digital restoration, culminating in the high-res digital scanning of 171 titles, the collaborative restoration of 42 titles and in-house restoration of 8 titles until 2019. TFAI continues to play a significant role in preserving Taiwan’s audiovisual heritage through digital restoration efforts, in order to preserve history and memory.
A hub for Taiwan documentary, TFAI holds documentary-related festivals and events, and also promotes Taiwan’s documentaries overseas. In 2014, the executive team of Taiwan International Documentary Festival (TIDF) established its permanent office under TFAI. As one of the major professional platforms for documentaries in Asia, TIDF is responsible for the festival and documentary- related affairs in Taiwan.
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Centre for Screen Cultures Playlist Initiative, University of St. Andrews, Scotland
In the early stages of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, the University of St. Andrews (Scotland) Centre for Screen Cultures (CSC) Playlist Initiative navigates the abundance of media materials migrating online, such as digital archives, proliferating streaming platforms, individual projects, and film festivals.
As the outreach process unfolded, the CSC Playlists afforded an opportunity to give visibility to multiple perspectives and voices through the media scholars, programmers, and makers who curated themed playlists.
An archive of the now, this initiative offers a valuable and timely resource for teaching and research. It disrupts the often totalizing and exclusionary tendencies of so many media lists in its embrace of international perspectives and a heterogeneity of approaches, topics, and interfaces, all of which are widely accessible.
Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF)
The Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival at Ithaca College embraces and interrogates sustainability across all of its forms: economic, social, ecological, political, cultural, technological, and aesthetic. The festival is in the spirit of UNESCO’s initiative on sustainable development. This initiative has redefined and expanded environmental issues to explore the international interconnections between war, disease, health, genocide, the land, water, air, food, education, technology, cultural heritage, and diversity.
Through film, video, new media, installation, performance, panels, and presentations, the festival engages interdisciplinary dialogue and vigorous debate. It links the local with the global. And it showcases Ithaca College as a regional and national center for thinking differently—in new ways, interfaces, and forms—about the environment and sustainability.
The Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival was launched in 1997 as an outreach project from the Center for the Environment at Cornell University. In 2005 the festival moved permanently to Ithaca College, where it is housed in the Office of the Provost as a program to link intellectual inquiry and debate to larger global issues. Professor of cinema, photography, and media arts Patricia Zimmerman and professor of politics Thomas Shevory are the codirectors of the festival.
FLEFF: A DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENT