AMBITIOUS AMATEURS - SOCIO-CULTURAL AND CINEMATIC PRACTICES OF AMATEUR FILM CLUBS IN THE LONG 1960S IN THE TRANSNATIONAL CONTEXT OF THE GREATER REGION

With the advent of post-war technical progress in amateur film technology, access and affordability increased rapidly. As a result, an international community of family film and home movie makers quickly emerged. Many enthusiasts joined clubs and associations to practice their hobby alongside like-minded individuals. However, these clubs were often composed of demographically homogenous members consisting primarily of middle-aged, middle-class men.
This dissertation investigates the Dispositif of the amateur film club and the amateur
film club scene, exploring various aspects of the border region Saar-Lor-Lux-Wallonia (known as the Greater Region since 1966) during the long 1960s, focusing on the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the German federal state of Saarland, the Belgian region of Wallonia, and the French region of Lorraine. Contextualised within the fields of Cultural and Media History, the research puts emphasis on the community’s film production as a practice and on the social interactions between members, clubs, and (inter)national associations. Reflecting on social, political and cultural conventions and transitions during the research period, the study demonstrates how the filmmakers negotiated, appropriated, and attributed these elements in order to construct individual and collective perceptions of identity, both within and beyond the amateur film club scene. The comparison of a border region offers a unique opportunity to visualise the national specificities and diverse temporalities within
Western Europe, and potential interdependences beyond the Atlantic or the Iron Curtain, fostering transnational research in European popular culture and amateur film. In addition to film documents, other visual materials, written documents, artefacts, and Oral History interviews constitute the source body of the empirical study. The qualitative analysis of the diverse sources allowed for an analysis of the clubs’ practices and discourses across countries and years within the Greater Region of the long 1960s.