The oldest magazine devoted to cinema in France has just launched a crowdfunding campaign to support its new project: to launch its database. Founded in 1934, Les Fiches du Cinéma has made it its mission to see and chronicle all the feature films released in theaters. A colossal task when you know that nearly 700 films are released in cinemas each year, or 40,000 feature films covered in 90 years.
Operating with three employees and around thirty volunteer editors, the legendary review aims to become a veritable encyclopedia of cinema. “We said to ourselves that this heritage, created almost 90 years ago, deserved to be digitized so that as many people as possible have access to it, explains François Barge-Prieur, the president of the association. Each year, we release an annual, which is the compilation in a paper book of all the reviews of the films released during the year. It was then necessary to scan all the annuals published since 1934. “We organized them with text recognition to transform the scans into usable text, specifies François Barge-Prieur. Then, we structured a database to be able to navigate through all of our archives.”
Although 1/3 of Cinema Files subscriptions are made up of professionals and 2/3 of private individuals, the launch of this online cinema bible will attract a new audience, such as “film universities, private audiovisual schools , media libraries or cinemas including arts and essays.
The funds raised during this campaign will be used “for the development of the database, but also for the creation of a potential application and to cover in general all the additional work that has been created with this database”, details its president. Les Fiches du Cinéma, which have raised nearly €10,519 so far out of the €15,000 hoped for, have received support from film personalities such as Macha Méril and Cédric Klapisch.
To support Les Fiches du Cinéma, you can find the link to the kitty here.
