Cinema Studies Students Attend Film Archiving Conference

In Cinema and the Archive, a class focused on issues in film and media preservation taught by Professor Nathan Holmes, Camila Garcia Cabrera and J.M.S.Emberley discovered they had a thing for old films, especially films that had been neglected or were in advanced states of decay. They went on to become co-founders of the Purchase Film Archive, a club dedicated to examining and inventorying the 16mm films found across the Purchase campus.

The Purchase Film Archive located classics and educational films once held by the college library, student films made in the film program in the 1980s and 1990s, and also received donations from the Westchester community. A lot of the reels they worked with had deteriorated over time, and those that were in good condition required proper storage in a cool and dry place.

Despite these challenges, there were discoveries to be made. Using rewinds, magnifying loupes, and a light table, Garcia Cabrera and Emberley learned how to inspect and identify film prints. They also programmed and projected 16mm for classes and special events. Their work gave them a unique insight not only into the varied uses of film as a medium, but also into the institutional history of Purchase itself.

In the Fall of 2023 Garcia Cabrera and Emberley were offered the chance to intern at Vinegar Syndrome, a Bridgeport, Connecticut-based film restoration and distribution company named after the notorious chemical process that leads to a particularly smelly–and irreversible–form of film decay. During the course of their internship they catalogued hundreds of films, learning the finer points of archiving such as copyright, collection processing, and metadata. They brought this knowledge with them as Learning Assistants for the Cinema and the Archive class in the Spring of 2024, conveying their enthusiasm to a new crop of students.

All of this led them to the 2024 AMIA conference in Milwaukee.

Emberley and Garcia Cabrera joined Oscar Becher and Lindsay Miller (archivists at Vinegar Syndrome), and Lucy Talbot Allen (NYU) to give a presentation that shared work they conducted during their internship. This work included identifying and inventorying materials that were part of the “Dr. Ted” collection, a vast trove of educational, experimental, and documentary films relating to the study of human sexuality, some of which had been presumed lost. Becher was effusive about having highly motivated student archivists join their team. “Without their contributions to film preservation (both at Purchase and Vinegar Syndrome), a great deal of discoveries would remain concealed to this day and not yet properly advocated for,” he said, “We look forward to seeing how these two Purchase grads will continue fighting for the moving image and impacting the field of film culture going forward.”

And what did the CTVS grads make of the experience?

“It was inspiring to see people from all across the field of time-based media archiving gathered in one space,” said Emberley, “I had the opportunity to speak to archivists from organizations of all sizes and all of these attendees were excited to speak about their work and to offer their professional advice to newcomers.” For Garcia Cabrera it validated the idea that archiving could be a unique and exciting area of study: “It reaffirmed to me that unconventional ideas in film education can really make something unique and innovative and fun!”

Both students are excited to attend next year’s AMIA conference. See you there!

You can read more about the Purchase Film Archive in “Now Or Never: Teaching 16mm Film Archiving and Preservation at SUNY Purchase,” which will be published in an upcoming issue of Synoptique: Online Journal of Film and Moving Image Studies, and follow their work on Instagram: @purchasefilmarchive_