This anthology offers the first systematic exploration of the 9.5mm amateur film culture, practice, and consumption, from its launch in 1922 to the present day. It breathes new life into our understanding of participatory media and its origins in the early twentieth century, revealing how a web of experiences gave rise to a vibrant ecosystem of collaborative storytelling and grassroots cultural movements that continue to shape our understanding of media participation.
The collection brings together the work of emerging specialists, early career researchers, and respected scholars from anthropology, film, media studies, and international film archival networks. The sixteen chapters in this volume bring fresh insight into early participatory media culture and confirm the ongoing influence and impact of 9.5mm film on global media studies.
The interdisciplinary approach and wide-reaching perspectives make it a valuable resource for cinema and media curricula, film archival projects, cultural and media anthropology, visual sociology, as well as gender, memory, and migration studies.
Introduction
Part I. Baby Ciné. Kinship through technology: three eighths of an inch
Chapter 1
9.5mm kinship and the creation of a new participatory media literacy
Annamaria Motrescu-Mayes
Chapter 2
The Pathé Baby attitude: voluntariness, amateurism, craft, and electricity
Mats Björkin
Chapter 3
Framing fragments: a young English woman and her 9.5mm Pathé Baby Ciné during the 1930s
Heather Norris Nicholson
Chapter 4
Women and the ‘Baby’ Ciné: gendered approaches to interwar amateur filmmaking in Britain
Paul Frith
Chapter 5
The sensation of colour: Josef Mroz and his short-lived colour process Mroz Farbenfilm
Stefanie Zingl
Part II. The world of 9.5mm: pioneers, experimentation, and recovery
Chapter 6
An Arctic trial. Pathé Baby into the extreme lands: the case of the 9.5mm amateur film about the Nobile Expedition to the North Pole (1928)
Andrea Mariani and Luca Mazzei
Chapter 7
The Pathé-Baby projector: a tool of the Catholic church
Elvira Shahmiri
Chapter 8
Pathé-Baby Films of North Africa
Nicole Beth Wallenbrock
Chapter 9
In Search of 9.5mm Widescreen
Guy Edmonds
Chapter 10
A (brief) history of Taiwanese cinema: Pathé-Baby and its early years during the Japanese rule of Taiwan (1920s–1930s)
Wei-chu Shih
Chapter 11
They survive on Nine-Point-Five: the lost films on the 9.5mm gauge and the need for their preservation
Chris Bird
Part III. The social gauge: ciné clubs and archival networks
Chapter 12
A mixed economy: 9.5mm in ciné club environments - Crystal Productions-Bournemouth film club
Zoë Viney Burgess
Chapter 13
The Social Gauge: 9.5mm and amateur cinema communities
Ryan Shand
Chapter 14
Filmclub 9.5 Bern. Exploring the collection and participation practices of a Swiss amateur ciné club
Eliane Maurer
Chapter 15
Extending the influence of cinema: 9.5mm in Catalonia (1924-1940)
Enrique Fibla-Gutiérrez, Mariona Bruzzo, Rosa Cardona, and Ignasi Renau
Chapter 16
The Grahame L. Newnham collection and the USC HMH Foundation Moving Image Archive
Dino Everett
Appendices
• Appendix 1: Index of Film Archives with 9.5mm film collections
• Appendix 2: Costs and Availability in the UK (between 1922 and 1950)
Index
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