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Gemona
The Cineteca del Friuli was born in 1977 in Gemona, when the city was at the height of its reconstruction after the earthquake of 1976, which had devastated parts of Friuli and particularly Gemona. The film archive originated with a collection of films of historical interest (the brothers Lumière, Georges Méliès, Edwin S. Porter, Thomas A. Edison, David W. Griffith, Mack Sennett, Max Linder, André Deed, Ferdinand Guillaume), which provided the basis for the first editions of the Giornate del Cinema Muto, the festival inaugurated in 1982 and organised in collaboration with the Pordenone cine-club Cinemazero. Subsequently the Giornate has become a recognised international event, followed by scholars and enthusiasts from all over the world, and from the first years regarded by FIAF members as a privileged venue to present their own treasures. This interest made it possible for the Cineteca del Friuli, besides being a member of the Association des Cinémathèques Européennes (ACE), to join the Federation in 1989, initially as a provisional member and from 2000 with full membership.
The Cineteca's film archive, currently in the process of being catalogued, has extended over the years to embrace American animation, the classics of the 20s, rarities from the early years of sound film, the earliest Technicolor and the American underground. Today the Cineteca possesses around 3000 fiction films in 16mm and 35mm and 3300 documentaries and newsreels. 3000 titles, 350 of them on DVD, are available for consultation, especially for students.
In addition to the film collections, the book library of some 15000 volumes includes primarily monographs on people working in the motion-picture industry (from producers to stuntmen), histories and studies on the cinema of individual countries, material on pre-cinema and catalogues of the major national and international festivals. The newspaper and periodicals library includes runs of some hundred specialist magazines and periodicals from Italy and abroad, with microfilm of such rare...