RSE Research Network Grant

Dr Tom Rice, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, has been awarded a 2-year Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) Research Network grant for a project entitled "The Lost World of Filmstrips." The Network Grant will support a series of events, a website and collaborative research within archives.

The 35mm filmstrip, which showed a series of still images often with an accompanying commentary, was one of the most versatile, popular and well-travelled media forms in the mid-20th century, whether deployed in industry, by church groups or governments. Yet despite its widespread use – from rural communities in Scotland to government health campaigns in colonial Africa – the filmstrip is largely forgotten today, both by the archives that hold these materials and the scholars, educationalists and media practitioners that might use them.

'The Lost World of Filmstrips' seeks to bring together archivists and scholars, from across disciplines, to locate, uncover and examine this "lost" media form. Through a series of in-person and online workshops, it will showcase approaches to, and uses of, the filmstrip today, bringing together experts and previously-unaccessed materials.