Applying the LOT Methodology to Enhance the Cinematic Heritage

Archives

Alessandro Cosentino

, Webert Júnio Araújo

and Inês Koch

Faculty of Informatics, Università della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, Switzerland

Escola de Ciência da Informação, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto and INESC TEC, Porto, Portugal

Keywords:

Digital Archive, Cinematic Heritage, Ontology Engineering, Linked Open Data (LOD).

Abstract:

The Locarno Film Festival (LFF) archives represent a valuable collection of cinematic history, providing es-

sential resources for research, education, and the promotion of international ﬁlm culture. To ensure these

resources are easily accessible, it is crucial to develop advanced methods for managing and linking the infor-

mation they contain. This work focuses on creating a shared way for organizing information, transforming

the LFF archives into dynamic, interconnected resources. This transformation is essential for preserving cine-

matic heritage, improving discoverability, promoting digital transformation, and efﬁciently managing archives.

Using an interdisciplinary approach, we developed the OntoFest following the Linked Open Terms (LOT)

Methodology. Signiﬁcant outcomes of this project include the successful reuse of existing ontologies to man-

age heterogeneous information, which has improved our ability to understand and retrieve relevant data. This

work demonstrates the potential of digital archives in the cinematic ﬁeld and provides a foundation for future

initiatives in digitizing cinematic heritage archives. OntoFest not only contributes to preserving the cinematic

cultural heritage of the LFF but also lays the groundwork for new research and creative applications in the

digital transformation of ﬁlm festival archives.

1 INTRODUCTION

In the era of Big Data, the overwhelming volume

of information is becoming increasingly accessible

and manageable. Therefore, archives should not be

viewed as passive repositories of outdated data. In-

stead, they need to be redeﬁned as dynamic and valu-

able sources of knowledge. The Locarno Film Festi-

val (LFF), one of the most prestigious international

ﬁlm festivals, stands as a unique meeting point for

cinema enthusiasts, industry professionals, and cul-

tural scholars, with an extensive archive spanning var-

ious locations and including analog and digital for-

mats. These archives, along with those of Radiotele-

visione Svizzera (RSI) in Lugano and Cinémathèque

Suisse in Lausanne, are crucial for preserving cine-

matic and cultural heritage, holding immense histori-

cal signiﬁcance for researchers and historians. This

work focuses on LFF archives as a case study of

cinematographic archival collections, highlighting a

largely dormant yet increasingly recognized legacy.

Digitizing these archives is essential for preserving

this invaluable cultural heritage for future generations

(Paschalidou et al., 2022). Moreover, digital archives

improve accessibility, allowing easy access to histori-

cal information and democratizing knowledge for re-

searchers, educators, and the public worldwide (Wag-

ner and de Clippele, 2023). Additionally, digital for-

mats also facilitate interoperability, enabling integra-

tion with other digital systems and databases while

improving the efﬁciency of managing and retriev-

ing archival information. To effectively manage and

enhance these digital archives, ontologies provide a

semantic structure that enables the organized, con-

nected, and accessible preservation of cultural her-

itage information. They establish a framework that

not only preserves historical information but also sig-

niﬁcantly improves its discoverability and usability

for various applications in research and industry (Lodi

et al., 2017). To address these challenges and op-

portunities, we introduce OntoFest, an ontology de-

signed to transform the traditional Locarno Film Fes-

tival (LFF) archives into dynamic, interconnected re-

sources. The primary goal of this project is to build

an ontology that provides semantically rich descrip-

tions of the cataloged material. To further support this

Cosentino, A., Araújo, W. and Koch, I.

Applying the LOT Methodology to Enhance the Cinematic Heritage Archives.

DOI: 10.5220/0012962000003838

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 16th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (IC3K 2024) - Volume 2: KEOD, pages 183-190

ISBN: 978-989-758-716-0; ISSN: 2184-3228

183

objective, OntoFest follows best practices by ensur-

ing that the data will adhere to the Findable, Acces-

sible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) principles

(Wilkinson et al., 2016) and will be made available as

Linked Open Data (LOD). OntoFest leverages the Ar-

chOnto ontology (Koch et al., 2020), which integrates

several complementary ontologies within the archival

domain, providing a detailed representation that ex-

tends beyond the capabilities of CIDOC CRM. Ar-

chOnto facilitates the description of speciﬁc aspects

of the archival domain, ensuring comprehensive cov-

erage of archival and cultural heritage materials. By

incorporating ArchOnto, OntoFest enhances the dis-

coverability and usability of the LFF archives, align-

ing with best practices in digital preservation and se-

mantic web technologies. This work aims to trans-

form the traditional LFF archives into a dynamic and

interconnected resource, a transformation that is cru-

cial for improving the discoverability and usability of

cinematic heritage. While initially designed for the

LFF, the framework is intended to be adaptable to

other ﬁlm festivals, enhancing access to these valu-

able cultural resources. This paper is organized as

follows. Section 2 presents relevant projects and ini-

tiatives aimed at providing access to cinematographic

research materials. Section 3 details the methodol-

ogy used in the development of OntoFest, following

the guidelines described in the LOT (Poveda-Villalón

et al., 2022). Section 4 discusses the speciﬁc char-

acteristics of OntoFest, including its framework, data

model, and the structure of its ontology. Finally, Sec-

tion 5 offers ﬁnal remarks and expectations for future

works.

2 BACKGROUND

The digitization of cultural heritage has emerged as

a key area of interest in a wide range of research

studies and projects. Despite this growing interest,

there are still a limited number of initiatives speciﬁ-

cally focused on digitizing ﬁlm festival cultural her-

itage. Several notable projects have made signiﬁ-

cant progress in managing cinematic cultural heritage,

adapting digitization methodologies to meet the spe-

ciﬁc needs of the seventh art domain. This review

is limited to projects offering insights analogous to

the goals of our study, with a particular emphasis

on works that explicitly deal with cinematic archives.

Further research in related areas might provide addi-

tional perspectives and insights beyond the scope of

this study. Next, we present a summary of these key

projects:

• Cinema Context (CC) project (van Wissen et al.,

2021) investigates the history of Dutch cinema

from the late 19th century, focusing on the dis-

tribution and dissemination of ﬁlms. While it pro-

vides valuable insights into the history and distri-

bution of ﬁlms, it does not extensively cover key

ﬁgures integral to the ﬁlm industry, indicating the

potential for a more holistic approach that also ad-

dresses these aspects.

• CINECOS project (Biltereyst and de Potter,

2018) aims at developing an open-access platform

for exploring the history of cinema in Belgium

and Flanders, integrating information on produc-

tion, distribution, and other fundamental aspects.

Despite its achievements, the project does not em-

phasize the development of a comprehensive on-

tology, a gap noted by the authors of Cinema Bel-

gica (Ducatteeuw et al., 2023), a spin-off of the

project.

• European Cinema Audiences (ECA) project

(Porub

canská, 2022) examines the ﬁlm culture

of the 1950s in seven European cities, focusing

on audience experience and ﬁlm popularity. It

collects and harmonizes a standardized archive

of materials related to the cinematic experience,

providing valuable data on demographics, prefer-

ences, and audience behavior. While it aims to un-

derstand the diverse cinematic experiences across

Europe, it does not address all aspects of the ﬁlm

industry, indicating the need for more inclusive

approaches.

There is a need for an approach that not only digi-

tizes and archives ﬁlm information but also creates a

comprehensive framework for semantically rich de-

scriptions. Such an approach should improve inter-

operability, accessibility, and usability, ensuring that

archival information is preserved and easily accessi-

ble for future research and preservation initiatives.

There is a need for an approach that not only dig-

itizes and archives ﬁlm information but also creates

a comprehensive framework for semantically rich de-

scriptions. Such an approach should improve inter-

operability, accessibility, and usability, ensuring that

archival information is preserved and easily accessi-

ble for future research and preservation initiatives.

3 METHODOLOGY

OntoFest is developed based on the Linked Open

Terms (LOT) Methodology, introduced by Poveda-

Villalón in 2022 (Poveda-Villalón et al., 2022). This

methodology focuses on reusing terms such as ontol-

ogy classes, properties, and attributes from existing

KEOD 2024 - 16th International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Ontology Development

184

vocabularies or ontologies and publishing the built

ontology according to Linked Data principles. Fur-

thermore, the LOT methodology is based on the on-

tological engineering activities deﬁned in the NeOn

methodology (Suárez-Figueroa et al., 2011). The

LOT methodology involves iterations over a basic

workﬂow consisting of the following activities: (1)

identifying ontological requirements; (2) implement-

ing the ontology; (3) publishing the ontology; and (4)

maintaining the ontology.

This section outlines these activities, detailing

their application in the development of OntoFest and

highlighting key deﬁnitions and procedural guide-

lines.

3.1 Ontology Requirements

Speciﬁcation

The ontology requirements speciﬁcation, the ﬁrst ac-

tivity, involves collecting the requirements that the

ontology must fulﬁll (Suárez-Figueroa et al., 2015),

which are associated with its goal, the domain it aims

to model, and technical aspects such as the imple-

mentation language. This process typically involves

collaboration among domain experts, ontology users,

and the ontology development team. The goal is

to collect information from diverse sources, includ-

ing datasets, regulations, standards, data formats, API

speciﬁcations, and database schemes. Subsequently,

a set of ontological requirements is proposed, which

can be formulated using the Competency Questions

technique (Gruninger, 1995) or expressed as natural

language sentences. Each ontological requirement is

validated and completed in collaboration with domain

experts and ontology users to create the Ontology Re-

quirements Speciﬁcation Document (ORSD), which

is the primary outcome of this activity.

For the OntoFest ontology, we conducted the re-

quirements speciﬁcation activity using data from the

archives of the Radiotelevisione Svizzera di lingua

Italiana (RSI) in Lugano and the Locarno Film Fes-

tival archives in Locarno. These archives provided

crucial information about the ﬁlms featured in the

ﬁlm festival and the television programming during

the festival period. This information was enriched

with additional data from external repositories, in-

cluding IMDB (Internet Movie Database), TMDB

(The Movie Database), and others. Multiple inter-

views were conducted with experts from the Locarno

Film Festival and various international ﬁlm festivals

to validate the initial draft and integrate essential con-

cepts. Additional concepts were sourced from the

FIAF (International Federation of Film Archives),

guiding metadata standards, archival practices, and

Table 1: Sample of OntoFest Requirements.

CQ Answer

What ﬁlms are featured in a

speciﬁc edition of the LFF?

List of ﬁlms screened at

speciﬁc editions of LFF, in-

cluding title, year, and other

metadata.

Which ﬁlms were screened

in a speciﬁc section of the

festival?

List of ﬁlms featured in a

particular section.

Which directors and cast

members have participated

in television programs dur-

ing the festival?

Names of directors and cast

members along with the ti-

tles of the TV programs and

their broadcast dates

best practices in digital preservation.

Based on the initial inputs, we formulated an ini-

tial set of ontological requirements in the form of

CQs (Competency Questions). These were deﬁned

and shared using an online spreadsheet that included

the following ﬁelds: Identiﬁer (unique for each re-

quirement), Competency Question (speciﬁes what the

ontology aims to address), Answer (responds to the

CQs), Clariﬁcation of Competency Questions (in-

cludes comments and additional context related to

the CQs), and Reference (indicates the sources of

the CQs). Once the initial proposal was drafted, we

shared the spreadsheet

with the domain expert to

validate the requirements. Table 1 presents a sam-

ple excerpt of some requirements for OntoFest. All

ﬁles generated during the development process, in-

cluding these requirements, are stored and managed

in a GitHub repository that will be publicly available

after the project ends in October 2024.

3.2 Ontology Implementation

The ontology implementation activity aims to develop

an ontology using a formal implementation language

based on the ontological requirements speciﬁed by

domain experts. This process involves several stages,

each dedicated to implementing a speciﬁc require-

ments set, resulting in a revised ontology version af-

ter each iteration. This phase typically comprises

the following sub-activities: conceptualization, reuse,

encoding, and evaluation. For OntoFest, the imple-

mentation phase was carried out using a structured

and iterative approach that incorporated these sub-

activities.

Ontology Conceptualization. In this phase, our

goal was to create a comprehensive model that accu-

rately represents the ﬁlm festival domain. To achieve

this, we collaborated with project stakeholders and

Google spreadsheet for requirements management: ht

tps://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iFgPlEGAClJJSm

xp_ndQe8jNI9C9JRsFRnZM3HhN8FE/edit?usp=sharing

Applying the LOT Methodology to Enhance the Cinematic Heritage Archives

185

technical experts from the archives of LFF and RSI.

Utilizing tools such as draw.io and Miro, we created

visual representations of the ontology. These dia-

grams facilitated a shared understanding of the con-

cepts, relationships, and constraints within the on-

tology. This enabled us to deﬁne various elements

of the ontology, including classes (representing enti-

ties with common characteristics within the domain),

class hierarchies (establishing hierarchical relation-

ships among classes for effective organization), prop-

erties (deﬁning both relationships between classes

and attributes), property hierarchies (structuring prop-

erties to reﬂect hierarchical relationships), and addi-

tional axioms (including necessary constraints such

as cardinality, domain and range speciﬁcations, and

other logical conditions).

Ontology Reuse. We integrated existing ontologies

to ensure interoperability and leverage established

standards. Signiﬁcant reuse included the CIDOC

CRM (ICOM / CIDOC CRM SIG, 2024) and Ar-

chOnto (Koch et al., 2023). CIDOC CRM, a refer-

ence ontology in the cultural heritage domain, pro-

vides a framework for representing people, places,

and time periods. It aims to exchange, mediate, and

integrate heterogeneous sources of information re-

lated to cultural heritage. ArchOnto integrates sev-

eral complementary ontologies within the archival

domain (N-ary, DataObject, ISAD Ontology, and

Link2DataObject.), offering detailed representations

that extend beyond CIDOC CRM. This reuse en-

riched OntoFest with a robust framework for repre-

senting archival information. This choice is crucial

for OntoFest, as it aims to model archival information

generated from each edition of the LFF. By leverag-

ing the principles of linked data and semantic web

technologies, ArchOnto creates a richer, more con-

nected representation of archival information, ensur-

ing that OntoFest can comprehensively cover the di-

verse archival materials associated with the LFF.

Ontology Encoding. We translated the conceptual

model into a formal ontology using the Web Ontology

Language (OWL). Using Protégé, we encoded the

classes, properties, and axioms deﬁned during con-

ceptualization phase, employing both manual and au-

tomated methods to ensure efﬁciency and accuracy.

Ontology Evaluation. Initial validation was con-

ducted using reasoners to identify logical inconsisten-

cies. Tools such as OOPS! (OntOlogy Pitfall Scan-

ner!) (Poveda-Villalón et al., 2014), Pellet (Sirin

et al., 2007), and Hermit (Glimm et al., 2014) were

employed to detect modeling issues. Iterative testing

ensured that the ontology deﬁnitions aligned with the

intended domain model and met the speciﬁed require-

ments and competency questions. Feedback from do-

main experts and ontology users was invaluable, al-

lowing us to continuously reﬁne and improve the on-

tology. However, since the project is at its intermedi-

ate stage, a comprehensive evaluation is planned for

future developments, involving both system evalua-

tion and user evaluation.

3.3 Ontology Publication

The ontology publication activity aims to make the

ontology available online in human-readable and

machine-readable formats. The human-readable ver-

sion is typically presented as HTML documentation,

which includes diagrams and examples to improve

readability and usability. The machine-readable ver-

sion is the formal ontology ﬁle, often in RDF/XML

or Turtle format, which can be accessed using the

ontology URI. For OntoFest, we deﬁned persistent

URIs for all the elements according to best prac-

tices described by W3C (Consortium et al., 2014).

OntoFest will be published online and available under

its URI ‘http://OntoFest.LFF.com/def/OntoFest/#‘ in

both human-readable documentation and a machine-

readable ﬁle. The human-readable documentation

will be provided in multiple languages, including En-

glish, Italian, German, and French, reﬂecting the na-

tional languages of Switzerland. Additionally, we

will register ontology with prominent repositories

such as LOV (Linked Open Vocabularies) to en-

hance its visibility and accessibility within the com-

munity. This will facilitate its reuse and integration

with other datasets, promoting interoperability and

broader adoption of OntoFest in various applications

related to ﬁlm festival archives and digital preserva-

tion of cultural heritage. OntoFest will be made pub-

licly available after the project’s conclusion in Oc-

tober 2024, ensuring that the community can ben-

eﬁt from the advancements and contributions made

through this work.

3.4 Ontology Maintenance

The ontology maintenance activity aims to update and

improve the ontology after its latest release. This need

may arise from various circumstances, such as identi-

fying new requirements, detecting bugs, or feedback

suggesting improvements. This activity can be initi-

ated during the ontology development process, where

new requirements or bug ﬁxes are scheduled into one

or more sprints. Furthermore, it can also be trig-

gered after the development process, leading to the

KEOD 2024 - 16th International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Ontology Development

186

generation of a new ontology version. To support the

ongoing ontology maintenance, we have adopted ef-

fective strategies to facilitate updates and manage its

evolution over time. These include utilizing robust

issue-tracking systems to document and discuss pro-

posed changes, enhancements, or new requirements,

ensuring transparency and reliability in the evolution

of the ontology. Gathering feedback from domain

experts plays a crucial role in assessing the ontol-

ogy and identifying areas for improvement. Engag-

ing with users and stakeholders helps gather diverse

perspectives and suggestions for improvement, ensur-

ing the ontology is more accurately deﬁned and better

suited for its intended purpose. These strategies en-

able OntoFest to be recognized as a dynamic ontol-

ogy, contributing to the preservation and accessibility

of the cultural heritage associated with the LFF.

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The goal of OntoFest is to represent the domain of

the Locarno Film Festival and to capture the me-

dia associated with ﬁlms and TV programs, includ-

ing their archival descriptions. OntoFest comprises

six main classes: Person, Film, Film Festival Edi-

tion, Film Festival Section, Film Festival Award, and

TV Show. Additionally, there are several subclasses

that further specialize some of the main classes. Re-

lationships between classes and subclasses were ex-

tracted from widely used common vocabularies, such

as Wikidata and Schema.org to ensure semantic rich-

ness and broad interoperability. This approach aligns

with linked data best practices and the FAIR princi-

ples, making data easily reusable and interoperable.

Where certain relationships were not covered by a

single vocabulary, we combined terms from different

sources to achieve more comprehensive domain cov-

erage.

Next, we will provide a brief overview of the

OntoFest classes.

• Film: includes the creative works presented at

the ﬁlm festival, representing the entire collection

featured at the LFF. It provides detailed informa-

tion about the title, description, country of pro-

duction, year of production, genre, duration, and

more.

• TV Show: represents the television programs as-

sociated with the ﬁlm festival, showcasing festival

events, interviews, and highlighting various facets

of the Locarno Film Festival.

• Film Festival Edition: contains detailed informa-

tion on all editions of the LFF.

• Film Festival Section: represent the different cat-

egories in which ﬁlms are screened during the fes-

tival, such as main competition, short ﬁlms, and

more.

• Film Festival Award: includes the awards given

out at the ﬁlm festival. It has six subclasses:

– Special Prize: recognizes various exceptional

merits.

– Feature Film Award: recognizes excellence in

feature-length ﬁlms.

– Environmental and Innovation Award: rec-

ognizes projects with environmental themes or

notable innovations.

– Short Film Award: recognizes outstanding

documentaries and short ﬁlms.

– Direction Award: recognizes exemplary di-

recting and production skills.

– Performance Award: recognizes excellence in

acting and performance.

• Person: represents all the individuals involved in

the ﬁlm festival. It has four subclasses:

– Director: Individual(s) who have directed the

ﬁlms.

– Producer: Individual(s) responsible for ﬁlm

production.

– Writer: Individual(s) responsible for the

screenplays.

– Actor: Individual(s) who have performed in

the ﬁlms.

Due to space limitations, detailed tables on ob-

ject properties (relationships) and data properties (at-

tributes) can be found in the supplementary materi-

als

OntoFest reuses ten classes from two other on-

tologies: seven from CIDOC CRM (ICOM / CIDOC

CRM SIG, 2024) and three from ArchOnto (Koch

et al., 2023). This reuse ensures comprehensive cov-

erage of archival and cultural heritage aspects.

1. CIDOC CRM Classes: we are reusing these

classes as they can represent overarching concepts

for digital media associated with ﬁlms and TV

programs and the provenance of their representa-

tion.

• D1 Digital Object: represents identiﬁable in-

tangible items represented as bit sequences,

For detailed tables on object properties (relationships)

and data properties (attributes), refer to the Google Spread-

sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GygsMIfa

qypLpNj1_FfaG03biCqCYkPh/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=1

14730170628215533786&rtpof=true&sd=true

Applying the LOT Methodology to Enhance the Cinematic Heritage Archives

187

Note: The ontology includes inverse relationships and data properties in its representation that are not depicted in this ﬁgure.

Figure 1: Classes/subclasses and their interrelation in OntoFest.

such as datasets, images, audio or video items,

etc., and are documented as single units.

• D13 Digital Information Carrier: Describes

the physical or digital carriers of information.

• E41 Appellation: Comprises all signs follow-

ing a speciﬁc syntax, that are used or can be

used to refer to and identify a speciﬁc instance

of some class within a certain context.

• E42 Identiﬁer: Provides unique identiﬁers for

digital objects.

• E74 Group: Comprises any gatherings or or-

ganizations of human individuals or groups that

act collectively or in a similar way due to any

form of unifying relationship.

• E78 Curated Holding: Represents curated

collections of digital objects.

• E87 Curation Activity: Represents the activi-

ties that contribute to the management and the

preservation and evolution of instances of E78

Curated Holding.

2. ArchOnto Classes: We are using these classes

since this model provides a more detailed repre-

sentation of certain classes compared to CIDOC

CRM representation in this aspect.

• ARE5 Identiﬁer Type: Deﬁnes the types of

identiﬁers used.

• ARE13 Subject Type: Describes the subjects

covered by the digital objects.

• DOE8 String: Used for plain text validation.

The OntoFest conceptual model can be analyzed

from the perspective of creative work and digital ob-

jects. OntoFest separates and interrelates these two

perspectives, providing a comprehensive framework

for understanding ﬁlms and TV programs’ creative

and digital aspects. This dual approach is crucial

for managing ﬁlms as both works of art and digi-

tal entities. It ensures that ﬁlms are recognized in

their creative context while being efﬁciently stored,

retrieved, and preserved in digital formats. By delin-

eating and connecting these two facets, OntoFest sup-

ports archival practices and enhances the accessibility

and usability of ﬁlm festival archives.

Creative Work Perspective. This perspective em-

phasizes the artistic and production elements of a cre-

ative work, focusing on its conceptual and intellectual

aspects rather than its speciﬁc encoding format. Key

subclasses such as Director, Producer, and Actor ex-

emplify the relationships and attributes that are piv-

otal to the creation and conceptualization of a ﬁlm.

KEOD 2024 - 16th International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Ontology Development

188

Table 2: A list of SPARQL queries and the respective results retrieved from the OntoFest ontology. Note: Partial Results only

contain a subset of the total results due to space constraints.

CQ No. Question SPARQL Code Partial Results

CQ1 Which ﬁlms participated in the

61th LFF Edition and won the

Direction Award? Retrieve

characteristics of the associ-

ated media for these ﬁlms.

SELECT ?film ?identifier

WHERE { ?film schema:workFeatured of

:61th_LFF;

wiki:P166 ?directionAward;

schema:associatedMedia ?

digitalObject.

?digitalObject cidoc:p1 ?

identifier.

}

Film: Elle veut le chaos ; Identiﬁer: LF-

FArchive243728

CQ2 What is the archive ID of the

TV Show that mentions the

Film that won the Best Fea-

tured Film Award at the 60th

LFF?

SELECT ?TVShow ?archiveId

WHERE {?TVShow schema:mentions ?film;

schema:associatedMedia> ?

digitalObject.

?digitalObject cidoc:p1 ?archiveId.

?film schema:workFeatured of:60th_LFF;

wiki:P166 ?FeaturedFilmAward.

}

Tv Show: Panorama Tagesschau ; archiveId:

RSI_Archive_2116883

CQ3 Who are the producers of the

ﬁlms that participated in the

Fuori Concorso Section of the

85th edition of LFF?

SELECT ?film ?producer

WHERE { ?film schema:workFeatured of:

Fuori_Concorso;

schema:workFeatured of:85th_LFF

;

wiki:P162 ?producer.

}

Film: She Will ; Producers: Dario Argento,

Philip Colbert, Sam Cryer, Natalie Denton, Jen-

nifer Eriksson, Wendy Grifﬁn, Sally Holder, etc.

CQ4 What is the subject type of the

ﬁlm directed by Pedro Costa

and presented at the 72th edi-

tion of the LFF?

SELECT ?film ?subjectType

WHERE { ?film wiki:P57 of:Pedro Costa;

schema:workFeatured of:72th_LFF;

schema:associatedMedia ?mediaObject.

?mediaObject cidoc:p2 ?subjectType.

}

Film: Vitalina Varela ; subjectType: portuguese

drama, grief, immigration

This view highlights the artistic value and production

context, capturing the essential creative elements and

their interconnections.

Digital Object Perspective. This perspective deals

with the ﬁlm or TV program as a digital object. It in-

cludes the technical speciﬁcations, digital format, and

archival details. Classes such as E42 Identiﬁer and

ARE13 Subject Type are used to describe the dig-

ital ﬁles, their formats, and their unique identiﬁers.

This view focuses on the storage, preservation, and

accessibility of digital entities, ensuring that ﬁlms and

TV programs can be effectively managed in digital

archives.

To validate the consistency of the ontology, we

employed HermiT reasoner (Glimm et al., 2014).

This check guarantees that OntoFest infers knowl-

edge accurately and delivers correct information. Ta-

ble 2 shows some queries executed within the ontol-

ogy. The results obtained from these queries align

with reality, conﬁrming that the model faithfully rep-

resents its domain.

5 CONCLUSIONS

In this paper, we presented OntoFest, an ontology

for representing the Locarno Film Festival (LFF) do-

main and its associated media, and explored its con-

nections to other ontologies, such as CIDOC CRM

and ArchOnto. The initial development and imple-

mentation phases have laid a solid foundation, and

early results demonstrate the ontology’s potential in

organizing and facilitating the retrieval of relevant in-

formation within cinematic archives. OntoFest lever-

ages the reuse of existing ontologies, such as CIDOC

CRM and ArchOnto, to manage heterogeneous in-

formation, thereby improving the understanding and

retrieval of relevant data. By employing the Linked

Open Terms (LOT) methodology, we have ensured

that the ontology adheres to best practices in ontology

engineering and linked data principles, setting a stan-

dard for future initiatives in digitizing cinematic her-

itage archives. Despite these achievements, OntoFest

is still in an intermediate stage of development, and

several reﬁnements are needed to further improve the

ontology.

We plan to conduct two types of evaluations: a system

evaluation and a user evaluation. The ﬁrst one will

involve technical assessments to measure the perfor-

mance, scalability, and interoperability of the ontol-

ogy, while the second one will gather feedback from

domain experts, archivists, digital humanists, and on-

tology engineers to evaluate the usability, relevance,

and completeness of the ontology. Based on the in-

sights gained from these evaluations, we will itera-

Applying the LOT Methodology to Enhance the Cinematic Heritage Archives

189

tively reﬁne the ontology to enhance its functionality,

usability, and alignment with domain requirements.

Additionally, we plan to develop a uniﬁed user in-

terface that integrates two complementary data ex-

ploration functionalities. The ﬁrst will be a visual

browsing feature that allows users to navigate and ex-

plore data without requiring technical expertise. The

second will be a direct query interface, accessible

through a SPARQL endpoint via an API, enabling

users to perform complex queries following Linked

Open Data (LOD) standards and cross-reference with

other LOD datasets. These functionalities are de-

signed to work seamlessly together, allowing users

to easily switch between them. For example, a user

might start with a direct query to fetch speciﬁc data

and then switch to browsing mode to explore related

information, or vice versa. The work presented here

lays the groundwork for future research and develop-

ment in the digital preservation of cinematic heritage.

As we move forward, we aim to expand the applica-

bility of OntoFest to other ﬁlm festivals and cultural

heritage archives, demonstrating its adaptability to di-

verse cultural heritage settings.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work is funded by the Swissuniversities Project

ord47. We thank Locarno Film Festival for providing

access to their archival materials and their collabora-

tors for their valuable feedback. Inês Koch is ﬁnanced

by National Funds through the Portuguese funding

agency, FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnolo-

gia, within the research grant 2020.08755.BD.

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