Department of Film Theory and History (DFTH)
DFTH develops three types of activities – research, editing and documentation. Significant projects are focused primarily on historical research of Czech cinematography, being focused both on the problematics of reflection of the film medium in Bohemia and further on institutional development of Czech cinematography. The department´ s current research goals include among others – study of the beginning of sound film in Czechoslovakia or research on the conditions for presenting films in the dumb era. The results of this research are continually published, especially in Iluminace – the journal of film theory, history and aesthetics but also in other specialized periodicals and miscellanies or in separate book publications.
The DFTH significant activities area is constituted by the editing activity focused on specialized works about film and cinematography, genre covering the area starting with qualified publicism, going to contemporaries´ testimonies up to texts of scientific character. The department consists of the editorial workplace of the quarterly journal of film theory, history and aesthetic Iluminace (one of the four National Film Archive periodicals – see further Film Overview, Film Yearbook and the Ponrepo cinema monthly program). DFTH further includes a publishing workplace preparing non-periodical publications to be published in a series called “Knihovna Iluminace". Founded in 1993, from then on both national and foreign works from the field of film theory and history, anthologies of works of leading national film critics and publicists and source editions have been published here. The department ensures not only preparation of the texts to be published but also the production of all NFA publications and their distribution.
These activities are then accompanied by supporting works whose main purpose is to strengthen the information base for historical research of the Czech film. Thus, DFTH has been carrying out a systematic survey of the Czech Republic archives and also selected foreign archives to the cinematography history from a sources point of view. Further on, it has been preparing a comprehensive bibliography and a list of archive sources for the project of six volumes filmographic catalogue The Czech feature film 1898-1991.
Iluminace – journal of film theory, history and aesthetic
The Iluminace journal was founded in 1989 as a half-year journal for scientific reflection of cinematography. Since its fifth year, i.e. since 1993 it has been published quarterly, both the extent and format have been enlarged on this occasion. Over the time of its existence Iluminace has brought original theoretical and historical studies, every issue contains also translations of foreign texts documenting current trends of the world film thinking or paying off translation debts from older time. A big room in Iluminace is given to the edition of sources on cinematography history as well as to interviews with significant personalities in this field. A special column provides room for the presentation of current research projects. As every academical journal, also Iluminace contains reviews of national and foreign specialized literature. Since 2004, there has been a dedicated space for monothematic block of texts in every issue. Since 2005, some monothematic blocks have been prepared in cooperation with visiting editors. Iluminace has been a reviewed journal since 2007.