Latest News - June 2006

What do you expect from a World day for audiovisual heritage ?

UNESCO launches the feasibility study on a World day for audiovisual heritage

The idea to have a world day for audio visual heritage was presented at the UNESCO General Conference last October by the Czech Repubic delegation. It was supported by France, Germany, Austria among many other countries. FIAT on behalf of CCAAA brought its full support to the initiative.

The feasibility study is expected to encompass the FIAT Appeal for the preservation of broadcast heritage which is due to be extended to all audio visual archives.

The FIAT Executive Council will respond to the questionnaire for the organisation as such. All FIAT members are invited to participate as well.

Press statement

A new "day" has dawned. UNESCO General Conference has proclaimed 27 October as the annual World Day for Audiovisual Heritage. In accordance with normal practice, a feasibility study has been commenced to test the objectives, practicalities, costs and expected results of such an annual commemoration.

Sound recordings and moving images in any form are vulnerable, and easily discarded or deliberately destroyed. Too much of the world's 20th century audiovisual heritage is now lost, and much more is slipping beyond recovery because of neglect, natural decay and technological obsolescence. Unless public awareness of the importance of preservation is increased, this trend will continue. The World Day for Audiovisual Heritage can be a means of building this global awareness.

The date is significant. On 27 October 1980, the General Conference adopted the Recommendation for the safeguarding and preservation of moving images, the first international instrument to declare the cultural and historical importance of film and television, and calling for decisive steps to ensure their preservation. In today's digital age, that call is going out to an even wider spectrum. More recent initiatives, such as the World appeal for the preservation of broadcast heritage (initiated by the International Federation of Television Archives) - which has so far garnered over 10,000 signatures - will also be embraced in the feasibility study.

Public consultation is a crucial part of the feasibility study, and it is open to everyone. To participate, go to the internet link below, read the background documents, add your views to the public forum and respond to the questionnaire. But don't delay - the close-off date for comments in July 31!

Participation in the feasibility study

Deadline for participation : 31st July 2006

Access to the on line Questionnaire and to the Forum

Download the questionnaire and the information sheet

Memorimage

FIAT/IFTA supports "Memorimage", a new Award and Festival for audiovisual works using archive material. Reus (Spain), 17th-25th November 2006

Deadline for submissions : 30th June 2006

In recent years there have been numerous film works, either in the cinema or in television, where an important number of archive images have been used. This usage has been carried out to contextualize a character, an event, an activity or, even, taking part of a fiction bringing its accurate historic viewpoint.

Memorimage is a new festival, the first one in its speciality, -Today's films with yesterday's images- which is organised with the aim of welcoming the best audiovisual works with these characteristics made all over Europe. Thus, we will be able to watch full-length films, documentaries, fictions, films to be exhibited in commercial cinemas or on television, video creations and works from audiovisual students, no matter the gender, as far as the archive images are in them.

From the very first edition [November 17th - 25th, 2006], our aim will be to show, year after year, a selection of European films in the competition section. Most of the pictures shown will be archive images.

In the frame of a Cinematographic Festival structure, several events will take place, all of them related to subjects that mean a contribution to recover the Cinematographic Heritage - exhibitions, conferences, workshops, conventions, symposiums, round tables, pedagogic programmes for school and university students, ludic activities, etc. Some of the activities will be held with the aim to become a permanent section in each Festival edition, for example, the celebration of the MECIC (Market of Cinema Collection).

More information in English, Spanish, Catalan and French : click here

Good news from Puerto Rico

The Puerto Rico Broadcasting Corporation receives support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for its Radio Archives project

On 31st May 2006, Luis Rosario Albert informed us that the the Puerto Rico Public Broadcasting Corporation and its Ángel F. Rivera Documentation Center have been awarded the sum of $315,750.00 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for the preservation of and access to 4,171 hours of radio programming produced by the government radio stations since 1958. This validates the Corporation's plans to develop a Documentation Center for its four audiovisual archives : the Historic Archive, the Radio Archive, the Video Library and the News Archive,

This project is the first radio content preservation project in Puerto Rico to obtain the financial and technical endorsement of the National Endowment for the Humanities. This award of federal funds recognizes the viability of the plans and techniques developed by the Ángel F. Rivera Documentation Center to preserve and give access to radio collections, as well as the use of digital technology to preserve historic material. According to Luis Rosario Albert, Director of the Ángel F. Rivera Documentation Center & Project Director, "NEH's support also recognizes the importance this artistic and cultural legacy has for Puerto Rico and for Puerto Rican and Latino communities in the United States." Jim Lindner of Media Matters, has been choosen as Chief audio-visual consultant.

This is the outcome of the project presented at the Brussels Conference by Luis Rosario Albert.

To download the complete press release, click here

The FIAT/IFTA Office
7th June 2006