From File to Film: Transforming Archives into Storytelling w/ Margherita Moro

//Tuesday, November 25th

//5:30 PM

//GEM Lab

//FB 630.15

This talk explores how archival research can evolve into cinematic storytelling. Taking Roberto Rossellini – Più di una vita (B&B Film, 2025) as a case study, Margherita Moro reflects on the transition from archival investigation to film creation, drawing on her work within Renzo Rossellini’s private archive, which contains thousands of documents and previously unseen 16mm reels. The talk examines how archives can shift from spaces of preservation to spaces of imagination, where research becomes narrative. By tracing the connections between archival fragments, production choices, and narrative form, it offers insight into how memory is reactivated through editing and interpretation. Finally, it reflects on the collaborative dialogue between scholars and filmmakers, showing how archival practice can become a collective act of storytelling that bridges the gap between historical inquiry and contemporary visual culture.

Margherita Moro is a Visiting Scholar at Concordia University in Montréal. She is the recipient of the PBEEE Fellowship awarded by the Fonds de recherche du Québec, supporting the internationalisation of research in Québec. She holds a PhD in Film Studies from the University of Udine and has completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at Sapienza–Università di Roma. Her research explores the intersections between contemporary art, media, and scientific dissemination, with a focus on the preservation and reactivation of film and television archives, and on how audiovisual media translate knowledge into collective narratives. From 2020 to 2024, she worked on the private archive of Renzo Rossellini, undertaking its complete reorganisation and cataloguing. This work led to the discovery of previously unseen 16mm films and over three thousand documents related to Roberto Rossellini’s late television and scientific projects.