Archives & Intersectionality: Linking the Personal to the Professional–Panel from AMIA 2018, Portland, OR

The panel that I presented this year at the annual AMIA (Association of Moving Image Archivists) Conference in Portland, Or. As a longtime member, I have been trying to get a panel accepted for many years but social justice and moving image archives have not always…been seen as congruent. I have always always always believed that you cannot discuss one without the other. They are the reel to the film. The lens to the projector. The 1 to the 0 (in digital).

This year I was HONORED to have some of the most talented and amazing colleagues and friends I know come to speak with me on the most meaningful and important issues within our community: issues of race, gender, sexuality, personal identity, and power and how these have influenced their work, their lives and their experiences as moving image archivists. Two of my panelists you may have met previously if you are a regular Archivist’s Alley listener: Brendan Lucas is the Outfest Legacy Project Manager and you would have heard him on my Outfest Legacy Project Managers episode!  Erica Lopez is continually referred to on this show due to her amazing work with the Fuentes Collection and discussion on Latinx home movies as we discuss here. Ina Archer is INCREDIBLY BUSY so I haven’t gotten her on the show, but it will happen! But she is an incredible writer, artist and is now a media conservator at The Smithsonian National Museum Of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC). You can check her out here.

Please forgive me on the video quality. It was recorded off my laptop because my actual camera decided it didn’t want to play nice. But you can hear everything except the young woman’s question at the very end (apologies) who was asking about some international issues and terms like diversity and inclusion and…I don’t think that my response was very good. I spoke with her afterwards and we sorted things out. I feel a little awkward about that! Thanks to Brendan for taking the mic and repeating the other announcement during the short Q&A bit.

I hope you enjoy and if you have any questions or would like to follow up on this, plan a panel with me or discussion on this kind of conversation with me (I already have some in my head) or would like to get in touch with my guests to tell them how amazing they are…feel free to contact me at archivistsalley@gmail.com

Episode 13: Outfest Legacy Project Managers of Past & Present- Brendan Lucas, Taylor Morales & Alice Royer

Pride Month has been AMAZING.

To say that my guests have blown my mind would be an understatement.

If you haven’t gotten a chance to check out the episodes with Anne Kelly, Magnus Berg,  or T.J. Tallie, I highly recommend that you do so. I am terribly proud of the fact that I was able to document these incredible people who are making such a difference in our landscape and are such immense figures as far as the idea of Pride is concerned. I am personally proud to know them and call them friends and colleagues but I am inspired by their continued power and brilliance in a world and professional landscape that does not always welcome queerness.

Which leads me to this week and the Outfest Legacy Project. As a 2-time UCLA grad school alumna, one of the things that I love about that school is the preservation work they do on LGBTQ+ materials with Outfest. While I was in archiving school there, I really wanted to intern with them but that never happened. So next best thing: I go to the festival every year, I have volunteered with them and for the grand finale of Pride Month on Archivist’s Alley, I am welcoming three amazing colleagues on to speak about the Legacy Project, Outfest, their work and the film festival coming up in July.

I know I say this about every episode, but really- it’s a GREAT EPISODE. Check it out! Brendan, Taylor & Alice RULE!!!! Bios and pix below the episode link, as usual.

Bios:

Taylor Morales is the Production Art Librarian at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science’s Margaret Herrick Library where she manages and catalogs the Academy’s unique collection of production design drawings, costume design drawings, storyboards, and other artwork related to the motion picture industry. Taylor previously managed the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project for LGBT Film Preservation where she contributed to the restoration of her favorite film Desert Hearts (1985) in addition to preserving and screening many other archival queer films. She is now a proud member of the Legacy Project Advisory Council.

Here is a link to buy the Desert Hearts DVD and Bluray via Criterion:

https://www.criterion.com/films/29139-desert-hearts

Brendan Lucas attended UC Santa Barbara and the Moving Image Archive Studies Program at UCLA. He is currently the Legacy Project Manager for the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project, a joint effort between Outfest and the UCLA Film and Television Archive, where he supports the collection, documentation, preservation and exhibition of LGBTQ moving images. For the past 5 years, Brendan has worked at Deluxe Audio Services (formerly Chace Audio) where he has coordinated and written about audio restoration projects for film and television.
Born and raised in Northern California, he currently lives in Los Angeles, where he is always either interested in–or going to–events in and around his adoptive hometown.
Outfest LGBT Film Festival (July 12-22, 2018)
Outfest UCLA Legacy Project
Legacy Screening Series at the Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood (year-round)
Alice Royer is a film and media scholar, archivist, and programmer living in Los Angeles. She has very nearly completed her PhD in Cinema & Media Studies at UCLA, where she also earned an MA in Moving Image Archive Studies. Previously, Alice oversaw the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project as Legacy Project Manager from 2014-2016, during which time she was selected to serve on the Teddy Award Jury at the 2016 Berlin International Film Festival. She has been a longtime Assistant Programmer for Outfest, and has screened films for AFI FEST, and the Los Angeles Film Festival. And also she has a dog named Walter, whom she probably anthropomorphizes too much.
The following is a short featurette on the preservation of the 1919 silent film that she mentions having worked on during her tenure as Project Manager, Different From The Others (1919).