On November 20, 2024, Archive/Counter-Archive hosted a special presentation by the Cinémathèque québécoise (CQ) on the Savoirs communs du cinéma initiative and the reactivation of the CQ's feminist audiovisual archives. This presentation (in French) was recorded and then subtitled by A/CA student researcher Lola Remy.

CQ’s statement on the Savoirs communs du cinéma project 

Since 2017, the Cinémathèque québécoise has been leading an initiative dedicated to opening up, linking and disseminating the film data it has been preserving for over fifty years. The Savoirs communs du cinéma initiative aims to encourage the sharing of knowledge and the discoverability of Quebec and Canadian works and artists to inspire new creative gestures. The workshops developed as part of this project enabled us to explore new forms of collaboration with citizens and artists, and to learn about semantic web technologies and open and linked data, in particular by enriching the Wikimedia Foundation's platforms (Wikidata, Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons).

In doing so, however, we realized that the opening up, dissemination, and reuse of data and archives on the Web could be hampered in the cultural and artistic milieu by legal obstacles or documentation issues. These experiments have also made us aware of the gender inequalities that still exist within our collections, and of the lack of digital resources available on cinematographic works produced by Quebec and Canadian women directors. This research has led us to reflect on new strategies, particularly in terms of mediation, with the aim of highlighting the contribution of women to our cinematic culture. 

In this presentation, we will briefly review the experiments developed as part of Savoirs communs du cinéma. Then, we will share the reflections and results of the second part of our initiative, focusing on some of the mediation tools aimed at reactivating feminist archives and countering gender inequalities on the web.

Speakers 

Élisabeth Meunier (Cinémathèque québécoise)

Élisabeth Meunier has been Director of Preservation and Collection Development at the Cinémathèque québécoise since 2023. She holds a bachelor's degree in art history, a certificate in archival science and a master's degree in museology from the Université de Montréal, and has been working in the cultural field for over ten years. Her academic research into the role of affect in museum visitors has led her to take part in symposia in Canada and abroad. With a keen interest in both collections development and preservation, she has held positions as mediator, curator and director of history and heritage within various organizations, before joining the Cinémathèque québécoise team in 2020 as head of access, promotion and collections development. Since then, she and her team have contributed to the Cinémathèque québécoise's mission by preserving and promoting its collections, notably through initiatives such as the virtual exhibition Ma caméra et moi and the thematic files available on the institution's website. 

Julia Minne (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne / Université de Montréal, Cinémathèque québécoise)

Julia Minne is a joint doctoral student at the Université de Montréal in communications and at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne in arts and art sciences. She is also responsible for the Savoirs communs du cinéma initiative at the Cinémathèque québécoise and a lecturer at the Université de Montréal. As part of her doctorate, she is preparing a thesis on research-creation, focusing on the reactivation and narration of the archives of the feminist artist-run center Vidéo Femmes. The creative aspect of her research took the form of a collaborative digital publication produced in partnership with the Cinémathèque québécoise, several members of Vidéo Femmes, and distributor Spira. The publication is available on the Cinémathèque's website and is entitled Vidéo Femmes: fragments d'un héritage féministe.  She also collaborates regularly with various cultural organizations in Quebec, such as the online documentary platform Tënk.ca and the magazine Panorama-Cinéma.