Per ricordare Jonathan Dennis (1953-2002), che ha fondato e diretto il New Zealand Film Archive, le Giornate organizzano ogni anno (ad eccezione del 2013) una conferenza in suo nome, chiamanando a parlare personalità il cui lavoro contribuisce allo studio e alla valorizzazione del cinema muto.
Jonathan Dennis era un archivista esemplare, un paladino della cultura del suo paese – la Nuova Zelanda – con una profonda consapevolezza del ruolo del popolo indigeno dei Maori, e soprattutto era una persona di eccezionali dote umane.
In 2002 the Giornate del Cinema Muto inaugurated this annual lecture in commemoration of Jonathan Dennis (1953-2002), founding director of the New Zealand Film Archive. Jonathan Dennis was an exemplary archivist, a champion of his country’s culture – particularly of Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand – and above all a person of outstanding human qualities.
The lecturers are selected as people who are pre-eminent in some field of work associated with the conservation or appreciation of silent cinema.


Relatori/Lecturers
2002: Neil Brand ("Where Does the Music Come From?)
2003: Richard Williams ("Silent Cinema as the Animator's Source")
2004: Peter Lord ("Dinosaurs, Devils and Living Toys: A Brief History of 3 Dimensional          Animation")
2005: Donald Richie ("My Years in the Dark, 1947-2005")
2006: Michael Eaton ("Time and Silence")
2007: John Canemaker ("Winsor McCay, His Life and Art")
2008: Eileen Bowser ("The Telephone Thriller; or The Terrors of Modern Technology")
2009: Edith Kramer ("Film Programming: Where We've Been and Where We're
         Going [Arguments with Myself]")
2010: Sir Jeremy Isaacs
2011: Serge Bromberg & Eric Lange ("Lobster's restoration of the colour version of
          Georges Méliès’ Le Voyage dans la lune")
2012: David Sproxton
2014: Ichiro Kataoka, Benshi
2015: Naum Kleiman (Cinema, A Public Affair, Tatiana Brandrup, DE 2015)
2016: James Curtis ("William Cameron Menzies and the Birth of Prodcuction Designer")