Cinema Ecosystem (CINECOS)

An open access data platform for cinema history in Flanders and Belgium: www.cinemabelgica.be

CINECOS will develop an open access platform for sharing, enriching, analysing and sustaining data on cinema history in Flanders and Belgium from 1896 onwards. Integrating 14 existing datasets covering key aspects of production, distribution, exhibition, programming, censorship and reception, the CINECOS platform will significantly improve the understanding and further exploration of cinema as a dominant public entertainment industry and as lived popular culture. CINECOS aims at (a) integrating these datasets, (b) enriching them with cinema heritage collections including posters, reviews and photographs as well as digitally-encoded oral histories and (c) making them available as open access.
CINECOS, which is inspired by the Cinema Context platform (UvA), will provide a robust platform for managing and sustaining this unique dataset and will facilitate data driven exploration and analysis using data visualisation, mapping, text-mining and other digital tools. Drawing on the expertise of the Ghent Centre for Digital Humanities and Platform Digital Humanities in Antwerp, CINECOS will be embedded into the DARIAH Virtual Research Environment Service Infrastructure and the HoMER network.

CINECOS is supervised by Daniƫl Biltereyst of the Centre for Cinema and Media Studies (CIMS) at Ghent University.