“We don’t need no thought control!” – we do need a continuing education though.

In the post-pandemic workplace, audiovisual memory workers across the globe are developing key technical, cognitive and affective skills at an increasing speed. In this session, we will be looking to identify and assess the needs and assets of the community on continuing education. After a short introduction in English, participants will be invited to join one of the breakout rooms for an open conversation from the perspective of their home country and the wider geographical zones they are familiar with. Each breakout room will be moderated live by a leading professional from the field in English:

• Karen Chan (Asian Film Archive, Singapore)
• Mick Newnham (Audiovisual Consultant, formerly National Film and Sound Archive of Australia – NFSA, Australia)
• Shivendra Singh Dungarpur (Film Heritage Foundation and Dungarpurfilms, India)

This Open Forum on Continuing Education (II) will be held online on 18 November 2021, 10:00 – 10:45 PM (PST) / 19 November 2021, 2:00 – 2:45 PM (SGT).

To register, kindly click this link: https://bit.ly/3wIJjy8

This forum and survey are sponsored by the AMIA International Subcommittee of the Continuing Education Advisory (CEA) Task Force.

What is the future of libraries and archives? Find out more from top library and archives leaders around the world at the Leaders’ Conversations 2021.

The Leaders’ Conversations series is a global digital platform for library and archives leaders to share insights and developments of the field. This series is back this year with the theme “Visualising Our Future: Masterplans of Libraries and Archives”, which is particularly poignant to the library and archives world as we face multiple challenges these two years.

The Leaders’ Conversations series is jointly presented by the National Library Board, Singapore and the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) Regional Office for Asia and Oceania, in support of the IFLA Global Vision.

There are four sessions for the Leaders’ Conversations 2021 to be held via Zoom:

• Conversations among National Libraries (1 November 2021, 5.30 PM – 7:30 PM, SGT). Register at https://form.gov.sg/615b155a3ce17100129c1965.

• Conversations among Public Libraries (9 November 2021, 4.30 PM – 6.30 PM, SGT). Register at https://form.gov.sg/615b153415d6580012f81df2.

• Conversations among Archives (17 November 2021, 4.00 PM – 6:00 PM, SGT). Register at https://form.gov.sg/#!/615b157215d6580012f8241c.

• Conversations among Academic Libraries (22 November 2021, 3.00 PM – 5.00 PM, SGT). Register at https://form.gov.sg/#!/615b159001b1d100121fb346.

Since 1982, the Le Giornate del cinema muto or Pordenone Silent Film Festival has been committed to supporting and encouraging the safeguard and restoration of cinema patrimony.

Every year, the Pordenone Silent Film Festival assigns an international prize, the Jean Mitry Award, to individuals and institutions who have distinguished themselves in the work of recovering and enhancing film heritage. Established by the Province of Pordenone in 1986, the award has now reached its 36th edition and has been supported since 2017 by the Fondazione Friuli.

SEAPAVAA would like to congratulate Kae Ishihara for receiving the Jean Mitry Award 2021 for her significant contribution to the promotion and development of film and audiovisual preservation. She receives this award along with Ronald Grant & Martin Humphries, co-founders of The Cinema Museum in London.

Kae Ishihara is the Founder and Director of Film Preservation Society in Japan and an Associate Individual Member of SEAPAVAA. Kae was also the recipient of the SEAPAVAA-NFSA Preservation Award in 2012.

The World Day for Audiovisual Heritage (WDAVH) – 27 October – is a key initiative by UNESCO and the Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations (CCAAA) to honour audiovisual preservation professionals and institutions that safeguard our heritage for future generations. Around the world, audiovisual archives join together annually on this day to celebrate their work with events that highlight the vulnerability of these valuable materials and the often, unheralded work of the institutions that provide protection, preservation, and access to the materials.

The theme for this year’s WDAVH  is “Your Window to the World” and the CCAAA Board’s official statement is as follows:

Audiovisual materials can tell your story, your truth, and your presence. They provide a window to the world, allowing us to observe events we cannot attend, hear voices from the past who can no longer speak, and craft stories that inform and entertain. Audiovisual content plays an increasingly vital role in our lives as we seek to understand the world and engage with society.

Join us on 27 October 2021 for World Day for Audiovisual Heritage by posting your events to this webpage: ccaaa.org/WDAVH2021. Promote justice, equity, and peace through audiovisual recordings. Celebrate the triumphs in your community and entertain us with your story. Show us your window to the world.”

SEAPAVAA joins the global celebrations of the 2021 WDAVH and highly encourages our members to share how they are celebrating the #AudiovisualHeritageDay. You may fill in the form at the CCAAA page and provide information about your respective events by sending a descriptive text (500-words max.) and one (1) image per event.

Happy 2021 World Day for Audiovisual Heritage!

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) has published an article titled, “25 Years and Beyond: The SEAPAVAA Spirit” in their Asia & Oceania Regional Newsletter, August 2021. The article was written by SEAPAVAA’s President, Karen Chan. Karen reflected on the lectures and symposium presentations at SEAPAVAA’s 25^th Conference and her key takeaways from the association’s first virtual conference.

25 Years and Beyond: The SEAPAVAA Spirit

Karen Chan

In 1996, the Southeast Asia Pacific Audiovisual Archive Association (SEAPAVAA) was born. SEAPAVAA celebrates its 25^th anniversary in 2021 with over 90 members comprising heritage institutions, broadcasters, libraries, universities, industry professionals and the like from more than 24 countries. SEAPAVAA represents the work done by its members at various international archiving networks. More importantly, it provides a platform for networking, for the exchange and sharing of best practices, ideas and solutions for the unique complex archiving issues facing the audiovisual industry in Asia and the Pacific.

Between 23 – 26 June 2021, SEAPAVAA held its annual conference virtually for the first time. Hosted by the Vietnam Film Institute (VFI), a SEAPAVAA institutional member, the e-conference saw over 160 registrants via zoom and Facebook to discuss the theme of “AV Archiving in Changing Times: Successes, Failures, and Challenges”. Besides a keynote lecture and a conclusion panel, a total of 18 papers were presented. There was a lecture by Adrian Wood, a SEAPAVAA Fellow, and a discussion panel made of contributors for an upcoming SEAPAVAA book publication, Keeping Memories: Cinema and Archiving in Asia-Pacific. The practice of having an institutional host for SEAPAVAA’s annual conferences has always introduced the culture of the host to conference attendees. Hence, despite going virtual, conference attendees (in-person in Hanoi and internationally online) were treated to traditional dance performances and screenings of classic digitised Vietnamese animation films.

The keynote lecture on “Adapting Digital Archives to Mitigate Climate Change” was delivered by Linda Tadic, the founder/CEO of Digital Bedrock. Her discussion was a crucial reminder for archives to be more mindful of the effect of digital archiving workflows. This call for a greater environmental consciousness is timely amidst a global pandemic and the extreme climate changes sweeping across every continent. The environmental impact is a very real concern for countries in Asia and the Pacific who have already experienced substantial heritage loss because of direct and/or indirect climate changes. SEAPAVAA and the regional archiving industry must work together to make some significant strides toward encouraging better environmental practices and incorporating climate change related risks to management policies and protocols.

Another key point shared by speakers and participants was the human resources challenge. Top of the list of concerns are that in the current transforming digital setting, it has become increasingly difficult to recruit people with the needed skills, to provide the appropriate training, and to retain staff for the long haul. Archivists are now required to be multi-skilled to cope with analogue and digital formats while being nimble to traverse between preservation workflows with different technological systems. The information and communications technology (ICT) skills once thought to be the sole purview of IT personnel are now a mainstay recruitment requirement. Archives struggle between hiring ICT specialists who have little archiving knowledge and employing archiving staff who may not have adequate ICT skills. Presenters and attendees revealed that their colleagues shadow ICT staff but questioned the viability of this as a long-term solution. There are no easy answers, but it is evident the archiving workplace is experiencing a human resource transformation that requires everyone along the chain of command to be willing to learn and an open mind to accept the changes that come with this HR revolution.

Several presentations touched on the benefits of collaboration, from working closely with community archives and volunteers, to developing sharing platforms, obtaining the cooperation of government agencies, and tapping on different archives to help advance and advocate the preservation cause. One of the presenters was a familiar face amongst librarians – Christine Mackenzie, president of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, 2019 – 2021. Her presentation on libraries and the pandemic explored the adaptations that libraries have undergone and noted that collaborations between libraries and archives enable greater access of the heritage materials that are being preserved.

Another important area of discussion in the conference was supporting and reaching out to colleagues of the Pacific islands. A presentation by Aileen Boubou from the Kiribati National Library and Archives highlighted the urgent assistance that archives and libraries in the Pacific needed to prevent the permanent loss of cultural heritage. SEAPAVAA Fellow, Adrian Wood, and founding president, Ray Edmondson, were some of the presenters who spotlighted the Pacific region for greater attention and aid. It is timely that SEAPAVAA’s annual conference in 2022 is planned to be held in the Pacific. Perhaps this would be an opportune time for the archival and library communities in Southeast Asia and beyond to come together to support the institutions in the Pacific region.

On a personal note, every SEAPAVAA conference that I have attended over the last 20 years have always left me with wonderful memories. Professionally, I have grown because of the sharing between SEAPAVAA members. Emotionally, I have enjoyed the warm connection that SEAPAVAA conferences bridge between people from around the world. Strangely enough, I still felt an odd sense of connection even while looking at the familiar and new faces of the SEAPAVAA community on screen. I can only logically conclude that this is indubitably the SEAPAVAA spirit, one I hope many will have the chance to experience too.

Original text from Asia & Oceania Newsletter, International Federation of Library Associations, 19 August 2021:

https://www.ifla.org/news/25-years-and-beyond-the-seapavaa-spirit/ 

https://cdn.ifla.org/wp-content/uploads/files/assets/asia-and-oceania/newsletters/ifla_asia_and_oceania_regional_newsletter_august_2021_issue.pdf

Interested in film archiving and the importance of preserving film heritage? Join the Philippine Film Archive in their free online panel via Zoom on 25 September 2021, 11:00 AM (Philippine Time, UTC+8), entitled “Philippine Cinema: Past and Past Perfect – An Online Panel Discussion on Film Heritage”.

Speakers for this panel include Mr. Doy del Mundo (Screenwriter, Director, & Author), Mr. Nick Deocampo (Author & Director of Center for New Cinema), and Ms. Karen Chan (President of SEAPAVAA). The panel will be moderated by Mr. Patrick Campos (Film Scholar & Educator).

The panel will also feature special previews of the book projects of the speakers on Philippine Cinema, including SEAPAVAA’s upcoming publication, Keeping Memories: Cinema and Archiving in Asia-Pacific.

To join this exclusive free forum, kindly register through this link https://bit.ly/PHFilmHeritage. You may also scan the QR code on the poster.

The “Philippine Cinema: Past and Past Perfect – An Online Panel Discussion on Film Heritage” is part of the celebration of the first-ever Philippine Film Industry Month, headed by the Film Development Council of the Philippines.

As the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) furthers its programs to uplift the industry with a wider reach, FDCP’s Film Industry Conference (FIC) expands as the International Film Industry Conference (IFIC).  In its fifth year, the IFIC continues its aim to bring together international and local experts to share and discuss the latest trends, opportunities, platforms, and cooperation globally that producers and filmmakers can explore for the development, production, and distribution of their projects with the intent of crossing beyond local borders.

Following its success with amassing around 2000 attendees as it shifted to an online platform in 2020, the IFIC strives to provide a platform to continue the synergy of the industry by featuring experts and professionals even online this 16 – 19 September 2021. This event will give a platform to further explore opportunities, challenges, and new norms in the film industry as we push and thrive to move forward in a global pandemic.

SEAPAVAA’s President, Karen Chan, will be presenting at the IFIC on 19 September 2021, 2:00 PM – 3:10 PM (Philippine Time, UTC+8). Joining Karen on the panel titled, “Preserving for the Future with Film Archiving”, are Leo Katigbak (ABS-CBN Film Restoration), Don Gervin Arawan (Philippine Film Archive), and Tina Tubongbanua (Viva Communications).

Their panel will discuss the advancements in film archiving and restoration that brought about significant changes and opportunities to save and preserve more film and audiovisual content. Participants will learn directly from the representatives of film archive organizations on their programs and efforts to ensure the survival and preservation of our local and regional film heritage.

To register, kindly visit IFIC’s website: https://fdcp.ph/ific/. Deadline for registration on 15 September 2021. For more information, please email fic@fdcp.ph.

On 6 October 2020, SEAPAVAA endorsed the declaration by the Board of the Co-ordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations (CCAAA) about the situation of the Cinemateca Brasileira to call on all relevant stakeholders, funding, policy and government agencies to urgently resolve the problem to protect the priceless cultural treasures in the Cinemateca Brasileira after Cinemateca Brasileira was forced to cease all activities in September 2020, leaving no staff to care for the collections or the facilities that house them.

Unfortunately, on Thursday, 29 July 2021, Cinemateca Brasileira’s warehouse in São Paulo caught fire. This 6,500 square meter warehouse housed more than 250,000 rolls of film and film-related materials. The full extent of damage has not yet been reported. This disaster once again demonstrates the failure of the Brazilian government policy to properly care for its national audiovisual heritage.

As a member of the international audiovisual archiving community, SEAPAVAA shares the communal deep concern of this uncertain situation in Brazil. We stand together with the CCAAA in requesting the Brazilian government and the other authorities responsible for preserving national heritage to urgently support the Cinemateca Brasileira to enable it to resume its indispensable function as soon as possible.

You can access the statement of the workers of Cinematica Brasileira through this link.