Reframing Space: Film as History

Since the first film screening on the 6th of June 1896 when a bustling audience watched the first moving images presented by representatives of the Lumière Brothers, the cinema on the Balkan peninsula blossomed. The first filmmakers emerged from the grassroots and as they turned their camera on the world, re-discovering it through the camera-eye, they captured an experience of the time and place in which they lived, including the concepts of faith and the lives of religious communities , in authentic and novel ways. REFACE approaches film as a primary source in the study of the cinematic representations of religion in the early documentary film from 1896 to 1939. REFACE systematically investigates the importance, place, and role of religion in the everyday life of religious communities as depicted by the early film pioneers through the camera- eye. It looks at how the film pioneers depicted religion, the life and relationship of the diverse religious communities, and the ways in which faith and the communities are understood and transcended within the filmic space. The early documentary film provides us with rare historical material which remains solely preserved on the reel: the people, their faith and customs, informing us about the specificity of the geo-cultural area and providing unique insight into its historical continuities and discontinuities. There is an evident gap in the scientific research in religion and film which lacks the study of the early documentary film and religion on the Balkan peninsula at the turn of the twentieth century. In that sense, REFACE is a pioneering study that aims to fill the gap in state-of-the-art by examining religion and religious communities through the eyes of the early documentarists. By employing a new methodology and systematizing material heritage REFACE will present historicallysignificant and otherwise inaccessible material to a wider audience through the first database and interactive exhibition on this topic. 1

Reframing Space: Film as History (REFACE) opens the new research area of examining film as history. By focusing on early documentary film in the Yugoslav space, REFACE achieves two goals: first, it introduces the novel way of examining film as history, testing the advantages and limits of frame as a theoretical concept and method of analysis; second, it provides the first systematic study on the early documentary film of Yugoslavia from 1896 to 1939. REFACE goes beyond the state of the art where the scholarship predominantly focused on the context and the means of production, largely leaving out the early documentary film of Yugoslavia from scientific research. The objectives of REFACE are to 1) propose novel theoretical framework and methodological approach in researching film as history through the concept of frame; 2) examine how the early cinematic works depict and represent the diverse ethnic, religious and cultural space(s) in Yugoslavia; 3) assess the ways in which these diverse space(s) are framed in the early documentary films. Outputs include 1) the monograph Reframing Faith in Balkan Documentary Film (Routledge, 2025); 2) journal articles published with Journal of Religion and Film (edited by John Lyden, University of Nebraska Omaha), Journal of Religion, Film and Media (University of Graz published by Schüren Verlag), Open Theology (New York: Walter De Gruyter); 3) the project website with a database on early cinema; 4) a digital streaming platform - YouTube Channel; 5) the first International Symposium Spaces of Memory at the University of Vienna, which gathered interdisciplinary scientists from Vienna and around the world together with world-leading filmmakers; 6) novel academic course taught at the University of Vienna: Cinema in Dialogue with Humanities and Social Sciences: Religion, Film and Culture; 7) University Seminars; 8) the Art Exhibition "Reframing Space: Film as History" in collaboration with the Viennese artist-in-residence Daniel Domig and held at the University of Vienna June-December 2024.