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As part of the AHRC funded research project on The Cinema Authorship of Lindsay Anderson, the project team organised Archives and Auteurs, a conference on filmmakers and their archives. The event, held at the University of Stirling on the 2nd - 4th September 2009, provided a platform for archivists and film researchers alike to expose their work to critical scrutiny by their peers.

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The conference kicked off with all four members of the home team highlighting an aspect of their work on the Anderson Collection, from archival tasks (Karl Magee and Kathryn Mackenzie) to the interpretation of material (Isabelle Gourdin and John Izod). Rounding off the opening session, Charles Barr gave an account of the scope of documents held in the John Ford Archive (in the Lilly Library, Indiana University). While highlighting exchanges between Ford and Anderson, Barr also demonstrated that, contrary to a preference for posing as a country dreamer, Ford, supported by his secretary, headed a most efficient team.

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Delegates' papers were delivered in eight panel sessions each arranged to highlight various aspects of archives relating to filmmakers and cinema history. Speakers showed how their archival research shed new light on the work of directors including Ingmar Bergman, Stanley Kubrick, John Schlesinger, Ken Russell and Hal Ashby. A number of panels widened their scope to look 'beyond the director' at aspects such as collaboration and scriptwriting, the Hollywood production system and the intertwining threads of British film and television history. The large amount of relatively unexploited archives still in private / commercial hands were highlighted in panels devoted to looking at current archival projects, and valuable new resources, such as Sally Potter's online archive, were also discussed.

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On the final day of the conference delegates were treated to a preview of the documentary film The American Who Electrified Russia. Produced and directed by the independent filmmaker and academic Michael Chanan, it featured material from public archives and private records that enabled him to portray an extraordinary character, Solomon Trone, who had left powerful memories with his relatives - Chanan's own family.

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The plenary speakers who closed the conference illustrated the ways in which academic researchers and professional archivists benefit from co-operation between the two sides of archives use. Sarah Street presented a paper that highlighted a crucial function of close study of archival material. As opposed to using archives on an illustrative basis, she uses them as a platform to challenge or enrich existing theoretical writing on film authorship. Marc Vernet from Université Paris Diderot, shared the core of a report he had written for the French Government focussing on the implications for archival work of that nation's employment regime for archivists which affords them careers spent at the crossroads of film theory and film preservation - but without continuing professional development.

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Finally, Barbara Hall from the Margaret Herrick Library - Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, gave an insight into the wealth of material it makes available to researchers. By focusing on the Library's holdings of Hitchcock's material, Barbara summarised the challenges of preserving and making available to the general public the Hitchcock archives. While attempting this, she and her colleagues have to keep in mind the materials' value for knowledge arbiters. The Herrick Library's endeavours to hold this balance speak eloquently of every archives ongoing difficulty in evaluating, and adapting to the shifting impact of any given filmmaker's work and legacy.