Theme: Emerging Audio-Visual: Accessing the Voice and Vision of Southeast Asia and the Pacific
Hanoi, Vietnam
Despite the current crisis in Asia, which unfortunately prevented many intending delegates from traveling to Hanoi, the third SEAPAVAA conference held in Vietnam was a relatively large conference. There were forty-four official delegates and observers from thirteen countries, with around 100 people attending the symposium and official functions. The conference was hosted by the Vietnam Film Institute.
Held in the new Horison Hotel in downtown Hanoi, sessions were presented in English and Vietnamese in simultaneous translations. The conference officially opened on March 22, with the keynote address of the Deputy Prime Minister of Vietnam Mr. Pham Gia Khiem. Participants lent color to the opening ceremonies by wearing their national costumes while an honour guard from Vietnam’s youth movement presented a bouquet of flowers to each foreign guest.
Papers and presentations ranged from current situationers from various countries; a detailed coverage of AV archiving activity in Vietnam; the newly-launched ASEAN AV database; copyright and legal deposit issues; technical topics on audio, video and film; and the promotion and delivery of access services. These were complemented with the sharing of case studies and “solutions that worked”.
The General Assembly took up the committee reports, ratification of new members, adoption of the work program and budget for the coming year, and other matters.
A festival of films from the collection of SEAPAVAA members was presented at the VFI cinema. Historian David Hanan (Australia) and film critic Agustin Sotto (Philippines) offered an overview, in film clips, about the emergence of southeast Asia from colonialism during the first seventy years of the century.
Participants got a taste of Vietnam culture in the water puppetry show, visit to Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, and an excursion to Ha Long Bay, a world-renowned UNESCO heritage site.
Among the outcome of the conference were: the adoption of a policy statement (SEAPAVAA’s first) on the subject of access; production of a succinct history of the cinemas of southeast Asian countries; strengthening of committee activities.