 May 26 marks a special date in the history of FIAT/IFTA,
since it was the first day of the very first official FIAT seminar in the
Baltic states.
The Seminar was held at the Viru hotel in the center of the city, close
to the picturesque medieval old town. Responsible for the very effective
organization of the Seminar was our host, Estonian Television ETV and
especially Reet Harkmaa from their News Archive, together with Jyrki
Stolt, Tedd Johansen and Lasse Nilsson from the FIAT EC.
We knew we had a strong programme that really would attract people involved
in audio-visual archiving in this area of Europe. But I don´t think
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 anyone
had expected the number of delegates that in the end showed up - over
100 - from Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, of course, since that was the
principle idea of Tallinn as the venue. But also from Iceland, Norway,
Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Italy, UK and Finland.
The Seminar was preceded by the FIAT/IFTA Programming & Production
Commission Spring meeting May 25th. This Commission meeting is the pre-jury
for the shortlisting of the programmes for the FIAT/IFTA Awards. Check
out the
Awards pages for more details.
The welcoming speech from the local host ETV was given by Mrs. Tiina
Kangro, General Director. In her speech she especially focused on the
difficult economic situation for the Baltic audiovisual archives in general
and for the ETV in particular in a time of political transition of these
former Soviet occupied states . She emphasized the importance of this
FIAT Seminar for the build up of networks on the audiovisual archiving
area.
The FIAT/IFTA President Peter Dusek also underlined the importance of
networking between archives and the effort of regional work of FIAT.
The programme very much reflected the whole spectrum of the work of FIAT
- from today´s great interest in digitization of all parts of the
production chain, preservation of old material, use of archive material
in new programmes, rights, the impact of the new 16x9 aspect ratio, to
metadata in documentation and national audiovisual archives.
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Of course there was a special emphasis on the audiovisual archive situation
in the three Baltic states. Robert Egeter van Kuyk, NAA Netherlands,
who has been visiting all three states several times the last years as
archive consultant for UNESCO, gave a thorough and vivid overview of
the development since the end of almost 40 years of Soviet occupation
and the present state. Even though struggling with severe economical
problems he could point out considerable accomplishments made during
this decade of building up of national TV broadcast and film archive
institutions.
 Ivi
Tomingas´ of the Estonian Film Archives presentation "Film
Preservation and the Audiovisual History of Estonia" I think gave
most of us a very first insight of the Estonian audiovisual history,
including stills. Starting with the very first Estonian film released
1912 by the director Johannes Pääsuke, followed by the between
the great wars period and the Soviet occupation decades, she ended in
the description of the ambitious buildup of a national film archive and
preservation center in the former Soviet Tallinn garrison quarters in
Tallinn. You will soon find her presentation at our website under "Agendas
and Documents".
 Just
as interesting it was to follow the presentation of the News Archive
situation at the Estonian Television ETV, by Head of Archives Reet Harkmaa.
These experiences are important to have in mind when we continue to expand
the FIAT networking to other archives in this area.
It has been very much due to Reet Harkmaa´s efforts
that this seminar became a reality. But we mustn´t forget that
it has also resulted in a generous offer, on the initiative of Jyrki
Stolt, from the Finnish Television YLE to arrange an audiovisual archivist
training workshop for Estonian archivists in Helsinki later this year.
Lasse Nilsson, Secretary General FIAT/IFTA
(Text & photos)
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