The Fifth International Conference Colour in Film will be held in London from March 11-13, 2020, organized by the Colour Group (GB), HTW Berlin and the University of Zurich, in cooperation with the BFI.
The event will include screenings in the BFI’s NFT3 theatre, keynote lectures and presentations by international film scholars, color scientists and film restorers.
This edition will feature a special workshop presenting results of the University of Zurich’s research projects ERC Advanced Grant FilmColors, SNSF Film Colors Technologies, Cultures, Institutions, ERC Proof of Concept: Development of a New Versatile Archival Film Scanner (VeCoScan) and SNSF Agora: Presentation and Visualization of Historical Film Colors.
The research teams’ contributions consist of
- an introduction by principal investigator Prof. Dr. Barbara Flueckiger with an overview of the interdisciplinary approach to the investigation of film color technology, aesthetics and digitization.
- Noemi Daugaard on the negotiation of color film technology at Fox
- Olivia Kristina Stutz on artistic practices and scientific strategies for designing color film
- Dr. Eva Hielscher on how to bring historical film and photography color processes into an art and science exhibition
- Dr. Giorgio Trumpy, Dr. David Pfluger and Lutz Garmsen on the newly developed multi-spectral archival film scanner
- Joëlle Kost on chromatic lighting in science fiction films
- Josephine Diecke on colour film preservation and recycling in the socialist planned economy
- Michelle Beutler on the negotiation of color film technology, aesthetic conventions and artistic creation in the 1940s
In a screening the team will present a short film digitized on the multispectral scanner developed in ERC Proof of Concept: Development of a New Versatile Archival Film Scanner (VeCoScan).

Aliens (USA / GBR 1986, James Cameron). Credit: Academy Film Archive. Photographs of the Eastman Color Print Film 5384 by Joëlle Kost, ERC Advanced Grant FilmColors.
The conference will also include a screening of a Technicolor dye-transfer print of Douglas Sirk’s Magnificent Obsession at the BFI.
Please see conference website for further information.
Registration is open, places are limited!
View the 5th International Conference Colour in Film schedule & directory.