A film museum is filled with: „rubbish,“ or rather, leftovers of film and cinema history. Like a giant garbage dump that provides archeologists with clues about the everyday culture and customs of prehistoric peoples, the byproducts of film history found in film museums provides insight into cinema as a social and technological fantasy and global industry. In their lecture, “Between detritus and remains: film’s driftwood“ at the Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien, Director of the Austrian Film Museum Micheal Loebenstein and Director of Collections Paolo Caneppele will discuss the remains of cinema found within their institution.

Michael Loebenstein, born 1974 in Vienna, is the Director and CEO of the Australian National Film and Sound Archive. There, he is responsible for initiating a process of modernization and accessibility to the archive by inviting artists to collaborate on exhibitions. In addition, he created a new online presence and spearheaded digitalization. Loebenstein is also the general secretary of the Executive Committee FIAF – International Federation of Film Archives. Since the late 1990s, he has worked as an author, curator, designer and researcher. At the Austrian Film Museum, Loebenstein oversaw the development of the department for mediation and research, supervising many projects and publications as a curator and publisher. Between 2009 and 2011 he was the project manager at Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for History and Society and was co-curator of the exhibition ”Wien im Film. Stadtbilder aus 100 Jahren.“

Paolo Caneppele graduated from the University of Bologna with a degree in History. After working in the Austrian film archive, he became vice-director of Kinemathek in Bologna. In 2004, he became the director of collections at the Austrian Film Museum in Vienna. Between 2002 and 2018 he held multiple teaching positions in film history, amateur film, and information studies at the University of Udine, Vienna, and Milan. Caneppele has published books on film history, censorship, information studies and film historiography, as well as text books for universities. He main area of research revolves around the relationships between history, film, and cutlure, i.e. Die Die Republik der Träume. Bruno Schulz und seine Bilderwelt, CLIO Graz 2010.