Royal Cineclub of Belgium

The royal Cinémathèque of Belgium is founded in 1938 by Henri Storck, André Thirifays and Pierre Vermeylen.

It has as an aim:

to constitute and preserve a film collection having an interest esthetic, technical and historical permanent
to join together the broadest possible documentation having milked with the cinematographic art and
to ensure, with aim of an esthetic and scientific interest, the consultation of these films and documents.

It had as conservatives Jacques Ledoux of 1948 to 1988, and since then Gabrielle Claes.

The Cineclub has the statute of establishment of public utility. It is member of the International federation of the Files of the Film which gathers the most important cineclubs on the international plan. It is a Bi-cultural organization subsidized by the federal government and is addressed to the two speech communities.

Missions

To preserve

The Cineclub gives absolute priority to elementary work related to the conservation of the acquired collections: storing, pre-inventory on nature and the physical status of films, measuring, physical classification, pulling of the counterparts of safeguarding and positive of projection, construction, installation, air-conditioning and maintenance of the deposits.

Problems involved in the conservation:

the nitrate
the majority of films carried out until 1951 were manufactured on a film containing nitrate, extremely flammable. Because of the risk that they present, these films are stored separately. The Cineclub finished the transfer of these films on film of safety.
the color: To avoid the depigmentation of the films colors, those must be preserved in cold rooms.
the syndrome of the vinegar
From the years '50, the film nitrate is abandoned with the profit of the film acetate, definitely less flammable. A few decades later, the conservatives note with horror that acetate breaks up, by releasing a vinegar odor. The only solution to save a film is then to draw a copy from it.
the supports with a future
More than one hundred years after the invention of the cinema, it appears that the conservation and the safeguard of films will pass by their digitalization. Several problems still arise before resorting to it indeed:

the cost remains exorbitant
the longevity of digitized films is not known
the technical standards remain to harmonize
the question of the royalties must be regulated

To restore

If the Cineclub has several copies of the same film, a work of comparison and of repair (takeoff, cleaning, dérayage, repairs of the perforations, etc) must be undertaken to reconstitute a copy of file as faithful as possible to original work.

Certain films - mainly among the dumb men - arrive at the Cineclub in a lacunar or problematic form (without original title, without credits, in precarious state). In this case it is necessary to identify film, to restore its origin, its original measuring, its subtitles etc the reconstitution of a film can require to gather materials scattered throughout the world and to carry out research in funds of filmographic documentation.

The Cineclub has its own laboratory where work of restoration is carried out (at least for the films black and white), including the pulling of copies. Priority is given to the restoration of the Belgian cinematographic inheritance.

To show

Any projection exposes a film to the mechanical friction of a machine and is likely to damage it or to destroy it. Ideally, the films cannot be projected before a negative matrix is produced by it which would allow the reproduction in the event of accident of it. The Cineclub could protect a big part from its collections making thus possible the projection of films.

Generally, the Cineclub is agent of films without having the rights of representation which are attached there. It would be absurd to preserve a film collection which cannot be shown. Thanks to its positive ratios with I' cinema industry, the Cineclub obtained the right to project films in noncommercial contexts: cultural, teaching, scientific. It is from this point of view that the Musée of the Cinema was created into 1962 within the Palais of the Art schools of Brussels.

While being a distinct association, the museum of the Cinema is used as window with the Cineclub since the great majority of projected films come from the collections of the Cineclub.

See too

Belgian Cinema
Museum of the cinema of Brussels
Conservation and restoration of the films

External bonds

royal Cineclub of Belgium

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