Why Documentation
Documenta/Film is not a generic footage archive to be used simply as illustrative material, but a resource for collective memory.
Documentation has a freedom of its own: it is a practice of collecting and recording that does not require materials to be shaped into a predetermined narrative. Rather than serving the event, it follows it, films it, and seeks to preserve as much as possible of what the event expresses and represents.
The materials gathered over the years stem from this understanding of documentation as a practice of observation and recording, not shaped around a pre-established narrative.
Long takes and close attention to spontaneous interventions define an approach that seeks to document the event in all its complexity. This practice shapes the archive as a whole.
Documenta/Film is not a generic footage archive to be used simply as illustrative material, but a resource for collective memory.
Documentation has a freedom of its own: it is a practice of collecting and recording that does not require materials to be shaped into a predetermined narrative. Rather than serving the event, it follows it, films it, and seeks to preserve as much as possible of what the event expresses and represents.
The materials gathered over the years stem from this understanding of documentation as a practice of observation and recording, not shaped around a pre-established narrative.
Long takes and close attention to spontaneous interventions define an approach that seeks to document the event in all its complexity. This practice shapes the archive as a whole.
Vincenzo Mancuso studied photography and screenwriting and attended the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano. His work focuses on audiovisual documentation, with particular attention to social and historical narratives.
Over the years, he has developed and produced numerous documentaries and built a historical archive that includes 16 mm and Super 8 films, primarily home movies, dating from the 1920s to the 1980s. He is the founder and curator of ANALOGICA, a platform and a festival dedicated to the exploration and promotion of analog practices in visual and sonic experimentation.
Founded in 2003, DocumentaFilm is the project he created to make his documentation materials accessible.
On Documentation
Since 2001, Vincenzo Mancuso has worked in the field of audiovisual documentation, focusing on the collection of materials rather than on shaping events into a closed narrative.
He has developed documentation projects in collaboration with the Museo Storico del Trentino, designing and curating research initiatives and collections related to historical memory. Among them, Trentini Americani led to the collection of more than 250 interviews with Trentino emigrants in the United States.
Over the past ten years, the United States has been central to a significant part of this work, through the documentation of major public demonstrations connected to the country’s social and political transformations from 2016 to the present.
Over the years, he has developed and produced numerous documentaries and built a historical archive that includes 16 mm and Super 8 films, primarily home movies, dating from the 1920s to the 1980s. He is the founder and curator of ANALOGICA, a platform and a festival dedicated to the exploration and promotion of analog practices in visual and sonic experimentation.
Founded in 2003, DocumentaFilm is the project he created to make his documentation materials accessible.
On Documentation
Since 2001, Vincenzo Mancuso has worked in the field of audiovisual documentation, focusing on the collection of materials rather than on shaping events into a closed narrative.
He has developed documentation projects in collaboration with the Museo Storico del Trentino, designing and curating research initiatives and collections related to historical memory. Among them, Trentini Americani led to the collection of more than 250 interviews with Trentino emigrants in the United States.
Over the past ten years, the United States has been central to a significant part of this work, through the documentation of major public demonstrations connected to the country’s social and political transformations from 2016 to the present.