The conference Le “direct” et le numérique. Techniques et politiques des cinémas légers: archéologie, esthétique, perspectives, organised by Benoît Turquety and Caroline Zéau with Anne-Katrin Weber, took place on 3 and 4 May 2017 at the Swiss Film Archive.

To speak of “digital cinema” today is to refer to highly diverse objects and realities. The expression undoubtedly evokes, first of all, the transformation of the modes of producing and disseminating the dominant fictional cinema, and in particular the new role of computer-generated visual effects. But this conference, organised by the cinema departments of the Université de Lausanne and the Université de Picardie Jules-Verne, explored a completely different aspect of cinema today. In fact the conference addressed the question of measuring the transformations brought about by digital devices in “poor” cinema: the cinema made in countries which do not have a film industry, or made in contexts seen as marginal or peripheral, or finally made by independent artists, outside the standard circuits. It may be here, in the end, that the most important issues for the world today can be found.

During the conference, two screenings were held at the Swiss Film Archive, at 6:30 p.m. on 3 and 4 May 2017.

The program of the conference Le “direct” et le numérique. Techniques et politiques des cinémas légers: archéologie, esthétique, perspectives