On the set of Vitet e Para / The First Years (1965)
People
The Albanian Cinema Project has strong support within Albania and beyond. We are a dedicated group of partners from the world of film production, government, not for profit, academic and professional advocacy organizations. Please read on to learn more about our dynamic team.
Rudi Beqiri
Rudi Beqiri is a New York based graphic designer and a fine artist. His concentration is branding that ranges from nonprofit to corporate levels. You can visit Beqiri Studio to view his work. His free time is spent as the Creative Director and Board Member for Cattle Spring, a nonprofit organization dedicated to alleviating poverty among farmers in underdeveloped countries, specifically in the Western Balkans. Rudi currently volunteers his time and design skills to assist the ACP in promoting its events in the US and internationally. (ACP Graphic Design team)
Mark Cousins
Mark Cousins is an Irish director and occasional presenter/critic on film. He interviewed famous filmmakers such as David Lynch, Martin Scorsese and Roman Polanski for the TV series Scene by Scene. In 2009, Cousins and actress/director Tilda Swinton created a project where they mounted a 33.5-tonne portable cinema on a large truck and hauled it manually through Scotland’s high country. The result was a traveling independent film festival, which was featured prominently in a documentary called Cinema Is Everywhere. The festival was repeated again in 2011. His 2011 series The Story of Film: An Odyssey is a 15-hour (15 episode) history of film that has screened on More4 (TV) and continues to make the rounds of international film festivals, including Toronto 2011 and Telluride 2012. He has directed documentaries on subjects ranging from Neo-Nazism to Iranian cinema. His four film books have been published internationally. He co-directs the 8 ½ Foundation, which is devoted to fostering cinema appreciation in children, with Tilda Swinton. He is an Honorary Doctor of Letters at the University of Edinburgh, served as Director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, which he took to Sarajevo during the siege, and co-directed Cinema China. He co-founded the charity Scottish Kids are Making Movies, and is also co-director of 4 Way Pictures with Antonia Bird, Robert Carlyle and Irvine Welsh. Mark learned of The Albanian Cinema Project through Thomas Logoreci and visited Albania with our team in November 2012. Mark has just completed the feature-length essay film Here Be Dragons that centers on his first experience visiting Albania.
(Founding Board Member)
(Founding Board Member)
Elvira Diamanti
Elvira Diamanti has served as the Director of the Albanian Film Archive since 2009. She has lectured at the Albanian Academy of Arts and at the Marubi Academy of Film and Multimedia. Elvira has served on several international film festival juries, including the Biarritz Film Festival and the Tirana International Film Festival and she is also the Chair of the projects council for the Albanian Center of Cinematography. From 2002 to 2007 she served as Director of the Albanian National Puppet Theater. She completed her studies in dramaturgy at the Arts Institute of Tirana, in 1985, and became a principal actress in the Albanian National Theatre that same year. She was awarded second prize at the 1987 Albanian National Film Festival for her portrayal of Marigo in the film Tale from the Past, (Dhimiter Anagnosti, 1987). Elvira’s first acting role was for the Albanian cinema when she was a small child, and she has maintained her love for and dedication to Albanian cinema since that time.
(Founding Board Member)
(Founding Board Member)
Dennis Doros
Dennis Doros Is the co-founder with Amy Heller of Milestone Films. Thanks to the company’s work in rediscovering and releasing important films such as Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep, Kent Mackenzie’s The Exiles, Lionel Rogosin’s On the Bowery, Mikhail Kalatozov’s I Am Cuba, Marcel Ophuls’ The Sorrow and the Pity, the Mariposa Film Group’s Word is Out and Alfred Hitchcock’s Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache, Milestone has long occupied a position as one of the United State’s most influential independent distributors. In 1995, Milestone received the first Special Archival Award from the National Society of Film Critics for its restoration and release of I Am Cuba. Manohla Dargis, then at the LA Weekly, chose Milestone as the 1999 “Indie Distributor of the Year.” In 2004, the National Society of Film Critics again awarded Milestone with a Film Heritage award. That same year the International Film Seminars presented the company its prestigious Leo Award and the New York Film Critics Circle voted a Special Award “in honor of 15 years of restoring classic films.” In January 2008, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association chose to give its first Legacy of Cinema Award to Dennis Doros and Amy Heller “for their tireless efforts on behalf of film restoration and preservation.” In 2009, Dennis Doros was elected as one of the Directors of the Board of the Association of Moving Image Archivists and established the organization’s press office in 2010. Dennis also serves as the AMIA Board liaison to the Advocacy Committee and has helped shepherd the collaboration between AMIA and the Albanian Cinema Project. (Founding Board Member)
Ray Edmonson
Ray joined the Film Section of the National Library of Australia in 1968. In 1973 he established and led its new Film Archive Unit. In 1978 he became overall head of the Library’s Film Section. Described as the ‘moving spirit’ behind the creation of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia in 1984, he was its Deputy Director until 2001, when he retired and was endowed as its first honorary Curator Emeritus, later serving on its Advisory Committee (2004 to 2008). During this public service career he devised and led corporately funded film restorations and pioneering programs like The Last Film Search and Operation Newsreel.
In 1987 Ray was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for his work in audiovisual archiving. In 2003 he received the AMIA (Association of Moving Image Archivists) Silver Light Award for outstanding career achievement. In 2008 he was elected NSW Pioneer of the Year by the Australian Society of Cinema Pioneers. In 2010 he was made a Fellow of SEAPAVAA (South East Asia Pacific Audiovisual Archive Association) and received its Life Achievement Award. He also received the Distinguished Achievement Award of the Australian Society of Archivists.
His work as chair or board member of various professional or community organisations has included The Federation Line Inc., Music Roll Australia, Archive Forum and the Friends of the National Film and Sound Archive. Internationally, he was elected inaugural President of SEAPAVAA from 1996 to 2002, and was ex-officio Council member to 2008. He was inaugural chair of AMIA’s Advocacy Committee and inaugural co-chair of its International Outreach Committee. Since 1996 he has been involved in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Program, authoring its current General Guidelines and Companion, and serving in several roles on its Australian and international committees; since 2005 he has chaired its Asia Pacific Regional Committee (MOWCAP).
Ray is now the Principal of Archive Associates Pty Ltd, a consultancy organisation affiliated to SEAPAVAA, for which he has carried out missions in many countries, including (most recently) Papua New Guinea and Palestine. He writes, advises and speaks internationally and his regular teaching commitments have included the professional audiovisual archiving courses offered by Charles Sturt University (Australia), University of East Anglia (UK) and the George Eastman House School of Film Preservation (USA), where he is also a member of its Advisory Board. His best known monograph, Audiovisual Archiving: Philosophy and Principles was published by UNESCO in 2004. His major writings have been published in ten languages. Ray has been instrumental in championing the work of the Albanian Cinema Project and will work with us to pursue several funding options for our ongoing work. (Founding Board Member)
In 1987 Ray was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for his work in audiovisual archiving. In 2003 he received the AMIA (Association of Moving Image Archivists) Silver Light Award for outstanding career achievement. In 2008 he was elected NSW Pioneer of the Year by the Australian Society of Cinema Pioneers. In 2010 he was made a Fellow of SEAPAVAA (South East Asia Pacific Audiovisual Archive Association) and received its Life Achievement Award. He also received the Distinguished Achievement Award of the Australian Society of Archivists.
His work as chair or board member of various professional or community organisations has included The Federation Line Inc., Music Roll Australia, Archive Forum and the Friends of the National Film and Sound Archive. Internationally, he was elected inaugural President of SEAPAVAA from 1996 to 2002, and was ex-officio Council member to 2008. He was inaugural chair of AMIA’s Advocacy Committee and inaugural co-chair of its International Outreach Committee. Since 1996 he has been involved in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Program, authoring its current General Guidelines and Companion, and serving in several roles on its Australian and international committees; since 2005 he has chaired its Asia Pacific Regional Committee (MOWCAP).
Ray is now the Principal of Archive Associates Pty Ltd, a consultancy organisation affiliated to SEAPAVAA, for which he has carried out missions in many countries, including (most recently) Papua New Guinea and Palestine. He writes, advises and speaks internationally and his regular teaching commitments have included the professional audiovisual archiving courses offered by Charles Sturt University (Australia), University of East Anglia (UK) and the George Eastman House School of Film Preservation (USA), where he is also a member of its Advisory Board. His best known monograph, Audiovisual Archiving: Philosophy and Principles was published by UNESCO in 2004. His major writings have been published in ten languages. Ray has been instrumental in championing the work of the Albanian Cinema Project and will work with us to pursue several funding options for our ongoing work. (Founding Board Member)
Iris Elezi
Albanian born Iris Elezi studied film theory and criticism, anthropology and women's studies in the USA before completing her film production studies at the Tisch School of the Arts (NYU) in 2001. Collective memory and the preoccupations of time are some of the essential inquiries underlying her work. Her editing and directing skills on the award-winning six-part documentary series Under Construction (2007) resulted in the series being chosen for the “Films That Matter” selection for the episode Disposable Heroes. Iris continues to live and work in the Albanian capital of Tirana where she teaches film analysis at the Marubi Academy of Film and Multimedia. She is currently in preparation of her first feature length film, BOTA, which was awarded the prestigious Euroimage grant for 2012. It is the first Albanian female director to receive this honor. BOTA has also received generous pre-production support from the Global Film Initiative. Iris is a passionate voice for contemporary Albanian cinema and works to bring knowledge of Albanian film history to international audiences through her own film work and through her work with the Albanian Cinema Project.
(Founding Board Member)
(Founding Board Member)
Reto Kromer
Reto Kromer became involved in audio-visual conservation and restoration in 1986. From 1998 to 2003 he was Head of Preservation at the Swiss Film Archive, in charge of cataloguing, conservation and restoration of the film collection. Since 2004 he has been running his own preservation company, which provides comprehensive services that encompass the whole range of moving image preservation, using both photochemical and digital techniques. His team has restored over two thousand works and documents. He is currently a lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, the University of Lausanne and the Berne University of Applied Sciences. His teaches courses on the conservation and restoration not only of audio-visual content, but also audio-visual carriers, with a focus on motion picture film. He has authored articles on moving image preservation for renowned journals and is actively engaged in the leading national and international professional bodies, including the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA). Reto recently aided the Serbian film archives in managing a serious problem with mold growth in their film collections. Reto’s expertise in this area will prove invaluable to the difficult work ahead for the Albanian Film Archive. (Founding Board Member)
Thomas Logoreci
Thomas Logoreci has worked as a producer, writer, director, editor and actor. He wrote and acted in the fiction short A Day's Work, which was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the US Shorts Fest and the Best Short Film at the 2009 Trieste Film Festival. In 2009, Logoreci also co-wrote the documentary short The Darkness of Day for filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt. Most recently, Logoreci adapted Booker International nominee Lloyd Jones cult novel 'Biografi' for a film to be directed by Aleksandar Manic. Thomas also produced and edited the American independent film I Am A Sex Addict (Caveh Zahedi, 2005). Thomas holds an MA in Cinema Studies from UCLA and he currently teaches film history and analysis at the Marubi Academy of Film and Multimedia in Tirana, Albania. Thomas is responsible for bringing the plight of the Albanian Film Archive to the attention of the international film community and he is the Associate Director of the Albanian Cinema Project.
(Founding Board Member)
(Founding Board Member)
Regina Longo
Regina Longo teaches in the department of Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She specializes in archival theory and practice, international documentary film history and Italian film and cultural studies. Regina is also a professional film and media archivist, who spent six years at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, DC, restoring and reconstructing the outtakes of Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah. While at USHMM she also shepherded the acquisition and preservation of the "Julien Bryan Collection." She received her PhD from the Department of Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara and has published articles in The Journal of the Moving Image, Screening the Past and California Italian Studies. Regina serves as Special Consultant to the Albanian Film Archives and is the Director of the Albanian Cinema Project. (Founding Director and Board Member)
Andrea McCarty
Andrea McCarty is the Curator of the Wesleyan Cinema Archives at Wesleyan University, where she is working to grow and expand access to the collections. She is the former Director of Archives and Asset Management at Home Box Office (HBO), and has also worked as an archivist at Northeast Historic Film in Bucksport, Maine and WGBH in Boston. Andrea received a master’s degree in Comparative Media Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is a graduate of the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation. She is an active member of the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA), and is interested in the preservation and access issues facing archives in the twenty-first century. (Founding Board Member)
Nancy McLean
Nancy McLean Suniewick has been the Colorlab comptroller and CFO since 1996. Before then, she handled episodic special projects, such as returning film elements to clients of several Washington, DC, area labs that had closed and had passed their vaults to Colorlab. In her current position, she handles financial matters, general management and proposal writing. Before joining Colorlab’s ranks full time, she was as a free-lance writer/editor in the field of higher education. She also spent several years on staff at the American Council on Education in Washington, DC. As all Colorlab employees do, Nancy believes that the preservation of the moving image is vital to informing the world’s cultural identities. (Founding Board Member)
Russell Merritt
Russell Merritt has taught for many years as a Visiting Professor in the Film Studies program at the University of California, Berkeley. He has written two books with J.B. Kaufman on Walt Disney’s early films, Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies (Cineteca del Friuli; Indiana University Press, 2006) and Walt in Wonderland (Giornate del Cinema Muto; Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993) and has authored numerous articles on D.W. Griffith, Sergei Eisenstein, and early film. Professor Merritt also produced and directed the “Great Nickelodeon Show,” a recreation of a turn-of-the-century nickelodeon program, which has played at the Telluride Film Festival, Il Giornate del Cinema Muto, the Los Angeles Film Festival, and other venues. (Founding Board Member)
Artan Minarolli
Artan Minarolli heads the Albanian Center of Cinematography. Founded in 1997, the Center supports the development, production and international distribution of Albanian films. Artan has been involved in Albanian film production as a writer, producer and director since 1982. He worked as an assistant director to director Spartak Pecani on his film Incessant Words (Fjalë pa fund, 1986). His documentary For a Centimeter (Për një centimeter, 1990) was lauded at the International Sport Film Festival in Torino, Italy. Together with Petrik Ruka he co-directed the drama One Hundred Percent (Quind për Qind, 1993) and The Clay Bullet (Plumbi prej plasteline, 1994). In 2004 he directed the award-winning psychological drama The Moonless Night (Nata pa hënë), an Albanian-French coproduction that was in competition at Rotterdam. His most recent film Alive (2009), which tells the contemporary story of a young Albanian university student who gets embroiled in an ancient, ancestral blood feud received critical attention at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Artan was director of the Albanian Film Archive prior to Elvira Diamanti and remains closely connected to the work of the archives. With Artan’s support, the Albanian Cinema Project was able to launch its first preservation project, which will premiere in November at the Albanian Film Festival sponsored by the Albanian Center of Cinematography. (Founding Board Member)
Veton Nurkollari
Veton Nurkollari is Director of Programming for DokuFest, Kosovo's largest documentary and short film festival, which he co-founded in 2002. He is also the curator of DokuPhoto, an annual showcase of documentary photography that runs alongside the festival. Veton is a member of the advisory board of the Balkan Documentary Center and is also a member of the selection committee of Cinema Eye Honors, an organization that recognizes and honors exemplary craft in nonfiction filmmaking. Currently, he is involved in the production and promotion of six short documentaries under the common title “Stories From the Kosovo Margins.” Veton was one of the first supporters of The Albanian Cinema Project, and helped bring greater awareness to the plight of the Albanian Film Archives through screenings at DokuFest. (Founding Board Member)
Stephen Parr
Stephen Parr, founder of Oddball Film+Video has a long history of presenting and archiving the unusual. Since the 1970s Parr has produced and documented live performances of John Cage, Christian Marclay, Nam June Paik and The Ramones, screened his signature pop culture montages from the Danceteria in New York to the Moscow Cinematheque and created found footage based films such as “Historical/Hysterical?” and “Eurphoria!” which have screened worldwide in venues such as The Anthology Film Archives in NY, Jaaga in Bangalore and the Leeds International Film Festival. His company, Oddball Film+Video, the largest film archive in Northern California, has supplied eclectic footage for countless feature films, documentaries, music and media projects worldwide. He curates an eclectic weekly film series-Oddball Films- at his archive and is a frequent presenter at film and media seminars and symposiums. He is an active member of the Association of Moving Image Archivists. He is also the director of the San Francisco Media Archive, a non-profit institution dedicated to the acquisition and preservation of culturally significant film and related media. The SFMA has received numerous preservation grants from the National Film Preservation Foundation, hosts the Center for Home Movies Annual Home Movie Day and has served as an archivist training and research center and provided footage for numerous academic and broadcast projects.
(Founding Board Member and Fiscal Sponsor)
(Founding Board Member and Fiscal Sponsor)
Paul C. Spehr
Paul C. Spehr is retired from the Library of Congress where he was the Assistant Chief of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. Since retiring he has continued his interest in saving our film heritage and has been able to expand on his interest in the beginning years of film history and contribute to the revived interest in cinema’s early years. He has written articles and participation in symposia and is the compiler/author of American Film Personnel and Company Credits, 1908-1920, (McFarland & Company, 1996) and the author of The Man Who Made Movies: W. K. L. Dickson (John Libby Publishing, 2008) Mr. Dickson was Thomas Edison’s assistant in the invention of the Kinetoscope and Kinetograph, the first commercially successful motion picture devices, a founding partner of the American Mutoscope Company and important pioneer film maker who directed more than 500 films between 1890 and 1903. Spehr is on the board of Thanhouser Company Film Preservation, Inc. (Board Member)
Ela Stasi
Ela Stasi is a graphic designer who currently lives, works and plays in Los Angeles, California. She graduated from The New England School of Art & Design at Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts in 2010, where she earned her MA in Graphic Design. Aside from design and other creative pursuits, she also maintains an online journal of inspiration and observations. Ela graciously volunteers her time and design skills to assist the ACP in creating innovative designs for our website and our international outreach and awareness campaigns. (ACP Graphic Designer)
Elian Stefa
Elian Stefa is a Milan based Albanian-Canadian curator, researcher, architect, and author. His work centers around unconventional lightweight interventions, revitalization of the abandoned, autoconstruction, and open source technological innovation.Recently he has founded Media Art Tirana while continuing work on the Concrete Mushrooms initiative with the publication of the project’s book. In 2012 he also represented Albania at the 13th Architecture Biennale while acting as the Associate Curator of 'Adhocracy', one half of the 1st Istanbul Design Biennial and the most recent exhibition of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, which brings a new perspective on the process and possibilities behind design. Collaborations include the EXD Lisbon Biennale, La Triennale di Milano, Stazione Futuro at the Officine Grandi Riparazioni of Torino, the Helsinki Museum of Cultures, Strelka Institute, and the Harvard GSD.
His published works have been featured in Domus Magazine and Abitare. (ACP Consulting Architect)
His published works have been featured in Domus Magazine and Abitare. (ACP Consulting Architect)
Dan Streible
Dan Streible is an Associate Professor of cinema studies at New York University, and Associate Director of its master's program in Moving Image Archiving and Preservation.He is the author of Fight Pictures: A History of Boxing and Early Cinema (2008) and co-editor of Learning with the Lights Off: Educational Film in the United States (2012). Dan has served on the Association of Moving Image Archivists board of directors (2004-06) and the National Film Preservation Board (2005-2010). In 2011, he programmed the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar's annual week of documentary screenings. In 2012, he was named an Academy Film Scholar. Since 1999, he has organized the biennial Orphan Film Symposium, bringing together archivists, academics, and artists to save, screen, and study neglected media artifacts. The Orphan Film Symposium has generously donated funds to support the work of the Albanian Cinema Project. (Founding Board Member)
Russ Suniewick
Russ Suniewick is the President and co-founder with Ernest Aschenbach of the Colorlab Corp. Established in 1972, Colorlab is a premiere East Coast film preservation facility located in Rockville, Maryland, with an office in New York City. Colorlab specializes in bringing to regional, government, and Hollywood motion picture film archives an affordable, complete line of digital, true liquid-gate hi-rez scans to polyester B/W and color polyester intermediate film-outs, from all film formats to all film formats. Colorlab has worked for many years sponsoring workshops and internships to provide hands on training for the next generation of film archivists and film laboratory technicians in the US and beyond. Russ believes strongly in educating future generations in the history and technology of all visual media and works professionally and personally to promote this message. (Founding Board Member)
Jean-Philippe Voiron
Jean-Philippe Voiron is a photographer living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area. Jean-Philippe joined ACP during our second trip to Albania in November, 2012. He donates his time and energies to documenting ACP events and activities. In particular, he has documented in photos and video ACP's tours of bunker systems in the outskirts of Tirana, Albania. Jean-Philippe is a native French speaker and has also donated his time and language skills to create the French subtitles for our feature film restoration of Nëntori i Dytë. ACP's restoration efforts will soon be available to a wider viewing audience in the Francophone world. (ACP Photographer/Videographer)
Eriona Vyshka
Eriona Vyshka joined the staff of the Albanian Film Archive in 2001. In 2006, she was appointed Head of the collection and cataloguing office. Eriona has edited several catalogues and periodicals published by the Albanian Film Archive. She also worked on several editions of AKT journal, an Albanian journal of media criticism. She has collaborated with the Albanian National Film Center, serving as the Albanian representative to the Southeast European Cinema meetings, an international cinema network that the Albanian National Film Center joined in 2003. Eriona represents the archives at several important Albanian film festivals including the Tirana International Film Festival and the Durres International Film Festival. Eriona holds an MA in Literature from Tirana University and serves as the liaison, principal translator and project coordinator between the Albanian Film Archive and the Albanian Cinema Project. (Founding Board Member)
Ken Weissman
Ken Weissman has worked for the United States Library of Congress since 1981, and is now Supervisor of the Film Preservation Laboratory at the Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation in Culpepper, VA. Ken has directed the Library's restoration of such films as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Frank Capra, 1939), The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941),Where are My Children? (Lois Weber, 1916), The Blue Eagle (John Ford, 1926), Big Fella (J. Elder Wills, 1937), and, most recently, a restoration of Paul Robeson's The Emperor Jones (Dudley Murphy, 1933) under a grant from the US National Film Preservation Foundation. Ken was integral in the relocation of the Library of Congress nitrate film collection to the Packard Campus and he is providing his time and his expertise in film storage facilities, and collections moves to aid the Albanian Cinema Project’s initiative to relocate the Albanian Film Archive collections. (Founding Board Member)
Caroline Yeager
A frame from HOLLYWOULDN'T (1925)
Caroline Yeager is the Assistant Curator in the Motion Picture Department at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, NY. Caroline joined the staff in 1998 after graduating from The L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation. She has 25 years of experience working in the performing arts, an MFA from Temple University (1975), and a BS from SUNY Brockport (1972). As Assistant Curator, she works on the glamorous side of archiving: writing grants to support the collections and developing exhibitions for public access. Caroline serves as co-chair of the AMIA Advocacy Committee. (Founding Board Member)
