Roundtable : What are the training needs for future professionals in the heritage film industry?

Several professionals and academics met to discuss the theme "What are the training needs for future professionals in the heritage film industry?" during a round table organized by the Classic Film Market.

Thursday, October 14, Le Karbone. During the 9th edition of the Classic Film Market, Jasmin Basic, coordinator of the Master in Cinéma, ECAL/HEAD, Sylvie Fégar, head of the audiovisual heritage master’s program INA SUP, Annick Teninge, director, La Poudrière, Edouard Treppoz, professor, director of the Master 2 D2A - Law, economics and administration of the audiovisual industry, University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and finally Grégory Tudella, lecturer and associate professional, Master 2 - Cinema exhibition, mediation and education, University of Lyon 2 met to discuss their respective fields of study and the place of heritage cinema. This meeting was moderated by Véronique Le Bris, journalist, author and founder of the Alice Guy Award.

The speakers had relatively different profiles, none of them were really specialized in the field of heritage cinema, even if many explained that their respective fields were "irrigated" by heritage cinema. Some students were said to have a "cultural background with references to old cinema" while others did not have the most significant "cinematic references" in this field at all. Many students also reportedly have "a lack of knowledge of the opportunities for work in heritage cinema." Although it appears that many have the "cinephilic knowledge" or at least access to some cinephilia to qualify. However, it was also pointed out that the "new generation", meaning the generation that grew up with the domestication of new technologies, finally has difficulty to be interested in heritage cinema because it is inundated by choices and possibilities via the Internet. It would lack "contextualization" around all this choice of heritage films.

Here is a summary of the round table discussion with quotes from the various speakers:

Jasmin Basic: "Heritage cinema does not have a central place in our teaching because our training is really aimed at a contemporary practice of cinema. There are about fifteen students who develop a film project or a current screenplay with a certain diversity in relation to the nature of the project chosen by the student. However, it can happen that this project can be linked to heritage cinema such as the use of archives or movie references. For example, we have a partnership with the Swiss Film Archive for archives. However, the goal in itself is not specifically to focus on heritage even though it inevitably is integrated or can resonate with the contemporary practice we offer in our training."

Annick Teninge: "Our training is rooted in practice. We work with small groups of 9 to 10 people who approach filmmaking through know-how with a team composed of film professionals. We broaden the spectrum to give a wide range to our students, from animation to cinema in general. We approach heritage cinema within the framework of cinematographic culture but the general culture is not brought by our lectures but rather by meetings which are made at the school or in cultural places. We also have the habit of taking our students once a week to see films in theatres because we find this important. What has strengthened our relationship with our heritage is the work done by the CNC on animated films from the beginning of the century until the 1950s."

Grégory Tudella: "We are trying to work on our image education and for that we are going to rely heavily on heritage cinema. It is important that our students understand that there is a history of cinema, that today's films are not there for no reason, in order to highlight this particular cinema. And then how we are going to present these films, how we can accompany them and especially what we can say about them. And imagine producing mediation tools such as our little 3 or 4 minute video, a 'pre-program', which introduces the film in question before its theatrical release."

Edouard Treppoz: "Heritage as such is not present in our Master 2 D2A. Nevertheless, heritage 'irrigates' our course because our students have about 80 hours of intellectual property, which is important so we talk about works. It is extremely important that our students understand the basics of copyright and so we obviously talk about heritage." 

Sylvie Fégar: "Like my colleagues, I want to say that the notion of heritage cinema as such is not studied or taught. But it is true that it is a notion that 'irrigates' the field. The specificity of the school is the insertion in companies, towards a structure more turned towards the audiovisual rather than the cinema as such. The school is not intended to train personnel for the Institute. We are already in a niche market, namely audiovisual and film archives, so we don't specialize only in heritage cinema, otherwise we would only have one student per year to insert into the job market. It is rather in the group work during the year where some students can sometimes choose a theme related to heritage cinema. If I were to overstate the case, I would say that there is a somewhat romantic vision of approaching our master's degree and ending up as a programmer at the cinematheque. To this day, that has never happened."