Collezionismo critico

This article examines the photo archive once belonging to film critic Ugo Casiraghi, now housed at the Mediateca of Gorizia, as a paradigmatic example of photographic collecting practices tied to Italian film criticism. Through a tripartite approach - acquisition, cataloguing, and reuse - the article reconstructs the complex circumstances that shaped the formation of the archive, which comprises approximately 65,000 images, including prints, slides, and promotional materials. Film photography thus emerges as a hybrid object: both ephemeral document and vehicle of memory, working tool and cinephilic fetish, an integral part of a complex system of mediation between film, criticism, and audience. This case invites us to reconsider film stills not merely as promotional tools but as hermeneutic resources and affective archiving devices, restoring centrality to a practice often marginalized in film historiography.