Gabrielle Claes

Gabrielle Claes was the director of the film archive, Cinémathèque royale de Belgique. She is known for her work in the preservation of films on reels.

Career

Gabrielle Claes was the conservator of the Cinémathèque royale de Belgique, also known as Cinematek, from 1988 to 2011.[1][2] She is known for her work in the preservation of original films on reels, rather than on videotapes or digital copies,[3] and for her work distributing old films.[4] She has spoken with cinergie.be, a website focused on Belgian film, multiple times including a 1990 interview on her new challenges as curator of Cinematek,[5] and discussions about the items in the archive.[6][7][8] In 1994, the film director Eric de Kuyper talked about her comments on the international nature of film archives means they are not reflecting the regional aspect of a given archive.[9]

In 2001 the archive experienced financial troubles as Claes discussed in articles in the media,[10][11] and there was a proposal to use funds from the lottery to support the archive.[12][13] She was able to enlist the support of filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese to make statements in support of the archive.[14] In 2007 she talked about the possibility of preserving films in digital format with Le Temps newspaper.[15]

Claes was on the executive committee of the International Federation of Film Archives from 1995 until 1999.[16] She was one of the founders of the Association of European Film Archives and Cinematheques (ACE).[17] She served as president[18][19] and treasurer[20] of ACE, and was the first person to hold the position of president.[17]

Gabrielle Claes made an appearance in "All Night Long" ("Toute une nuit") by Chantal Akerman (1982).[21] She is also in the film Exprmntl about the film festival of the same name that was organized by Cinematek; the film was shown in 2019 at the London Short Film Festival.[22]

Selected publications
  • Claes, Gabrielle (2001). "Managing a collection- issues of selection and transmission" (PDF). Danish Film Institute. Preserve Then Show. Retrieved January 17, 2022.
    • reviewed in The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists[23]
  • Claes, Gabrielle (2009). "Musée du cinéma / Cinematek". Journal of Film Preservation (79/80): 26–30. Retrieved 2022-01-17.
  • Claes, Gabrielle; Martens, Erik (2009). "La Cinémathèque numérise". Journal of Film Preservation (79/80): 102. Retrieved 2022-01-17.

Awards and honors

In 1995 she won the Joseph Plateau Award for "guests of Film Fest Ghent whose achievements have earned them a special and distinct place in the history of international film making".[24] She also served on the 1995 jury for the Grand Prix for Best Film of the Film Fest Ghent.[25] In 2011, the Flemish Film Awards awarded her with Prijs van de Verdienste, a merit award, in recognition of her work with the Cinematek film archive.[26]

References
  1. Danvers, Louis (2005-04-15). "Gabrielle Claes ou la transmission". Site-LeVif-FR (in French). Retrieved 2022-01-17.
  2. "International Federation of Film Archives". www.fiafnet.org. Retrieved 2022-01-17.
  3. Houston, Penelope (1994). Keepers of the Frame: The Film Archives. British Film Institute. ISBN 978-0-85170-471-5. Once you make video-tapes, rather than preserving film correctly, the pressure is off and you are left for ever with your tapes.' Gabrielle Claes, of the Royal Belgian Film Archive, argued that even film school students now watch films on video as a matter of course: there must be one surviving bastion of the old authentic values, one place at least where they can be reminded what film
  4. Bouras, Dimitra; Vlaeminckx, Jean-Michel (2012). "Nicola Mazzanti, conservateur de Cinematek". Cinergie.be. Archived from the original on 2020-09-29. Retrieved 2022-01-16.
  5. Vlaeminckx, Jean-Michel; Elhem, Philippe (April 1, 1990). "Gabrielle Claes - Le changement et la continuité". Cinergie.be. Archived from the original on 2020-08-13. Retrieved 2022-01-17.
  6. Simon, Phillippe (December 1, 1996). "Gabrielle Claes - La Cinémathèque royale de Belgique". Cinergie.be. Archived from the original on 2022-01-17. Retrieved 2022-01-17.
  7. "Entrevue avec Gabrielle Claes : la cinémathèque, nouvel état des lieux". Cinergie.be. December 1, 2002. Archived from the original on 2022-01-17. Retrieved 2022-01-17.
  8. Bouras, Dmitra (February 6, 2002). "Gabrielle Claes, conservateur de CINEMATEK". Cinergie.be. Archived from the original on 2020-10-01. Retrieved 2022-01-17.
  9. de Kuyper, Eric (1994). "Anyone for an Aesthetic of Film History?". Film History. 6 (1): 100–109. ISSN 0892-2160. JSTOR 3815011.
  10. Geitner, Paul (2001-05-11). "Belgium's Vast Film Archive Fights for Self-Preservation". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2022-01-18. Retrieved 2022-01-17. ...Claes, 54, worries that the archive won't be able to attract qualified people to keep it going. "I see [the archive] with kind of a tenderness, but I'm not expecting young people to do so," she says. "We are amateurs, and there's something nice about that but . . . that's part of the problem. . . . I want this archive to be a modern institution, with the right people, good equipment. The films deserve that, otherwise they're not going to survive, and all the work which was done is going to be for nothing at the end."
  11. "Gabrielle Claes, « cinémathécaire » en péril". Le Monde.fr (in French). 2001-04-04. Retrieved 2022-01-17.
  12. "Entrevue avec Gabrielle Claes". Cinergie.be. April 1, 2001. Archived from the original on 2020-08-15. Retrieved 2022-01-17.
  13. Geitner, Paul (May 10, 2001). "Money is tight at the world's largest film archive in Belgium". Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
  14. MALANDRIN, Stéphane (April 13, 2001). "Patrimoine et tombola". Libération (in French). Archived from the original on 2021-09-10. Retrieved 2022-01-17. Scorsese intervient. La mobilisation pour sauver la Cinémathèque dépasse les frontières du royaume. Martin Scorsese, depuis Rome où il tourne Gangs of New York, a envoyé un message de solidarité à Gabrielle Claes. «J'adjure, écrit-il, le gouvernement belge de donner à la cinémathèque l'assurance d'un financement convenable, afin qu'elle puisse continuer ses efforts de préservation et de restauration de films.»
  15. Creutz, Norbert (2007-09-22). "La cacophonie des fichiers". Le Temps (in French). ISSN 1423-3967. Retrieved 2022-01-17.
  16. "Past executive committees". International Federation of Film Archives. Archived from the original on 2015-12-05. Retrieved 2022-01-17.
  17. "International Federation of Film Archives". www.fiafnet.org. Retrieved 2022-01-16.
  18. "Un patrimoine grand comme l'Europe". October 22, 2002. Archived from the original on 2022-01-18.
  19. Nasta, Dominique; Huvelle, Didier (2004). Le son en perspective: nouvelles recherches. Peter Lang. ISBN 978-90-5201-208-7.
  20. "Executive Committee – ACE – Association des Cinémathèques Européennes". Retrieved 2022-01-17.
  21. La Revue du Cinema 1982-11: Iss 377 (in French). Internet Archive. Ligue Francaise De L'enseignement. 1982. p. 28.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  22. "Events | LSFF2019 | London Short Film Festival". archive.shortfilms.org.uk. Retrieved 2022-01-17.
  23. Hahn, James (2005). "Review of Preserve Then Show". The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists. 5 (1): 156–159. doi:10.1353/mov.2005.0008. ISSN 1532-3978. JSTOR 41167198. S2CID 191415605.
  24. "Joseph Plateau Honorary Award". Film Festival Gent. Retrieved 2022-01-16.
  25. "Officiële Competitie". Film Festival Gent (in Dutch). Retrieved 2022-01-17.
  26. "De Vlaamse Filmprijzen zijn uitgereikt, Rundskop winnaar" (in Dutch). September 11, 2011. Archived from the original on 2022-01-17. Gabriëlle Claes heeft als opvolgster van Jacques Ledoux schitterend werk geleverd bij Cinematek. Het is niet alleen belangrijk om films te maken, maar ook het geheugen van de cinema en in het bijzonder die van de Vlaamse Films moet verder uitgedragen kunnen worden
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