Connected to

film heritage

A report published 6 July 2010 by the European Commission's Information Society and Media Directorate General sounds the alarm over the survival of Europe's film heritage. Please read the report on http://ec.europa.eu/avpolicy/reg/cinema/report_2/index_en.htm

Read more...

The conference is organised by the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the context of the International Film Festival of Ghent. The Commission organizes the Cinema Expert Group/Subgroup Film Heritage on 15 October in Brussels, in order to facilitate the attendance by international participants. ...

Read more...

The European Commission has launched a call for tenders in order to conduct a study on the 'Challenges of the digital era for film heritage institutions'. The deadline for receipt of tenders is 1 September 2010. ...

Read more...

Editorial

Welcome to the 2nd issue of the European Film Gateway newsletter! Its main purpose is to provide up-to-date information on the project outcomes and to report about activities and events which concern the film archival community as well as the wider group of Europeana projects to which EFG belongs.

Copyright, for example, is a central issue for EFG and all those projects, whishing to make their cultural heritage available online, so we will regularly inform on relevant themes surrounding copyright. In this issue we give a brief overview of the Google Book Settlement and its impacts.

In each newsletter issue, one or two EFG partners present a highlight from their archives: an exceptional collection, a digitisation or restoration project, or any other important activity for saving and promoting European film heritage. This time our Swiss and Danish partners, the Lichtspiel - Kinemathek Bern and Det Danske Filminstitut introduce films from their collections.

The EFG newsletter is published biannually during the three-year EFG project duration. The 3rd issue will be out in February 2010.

We hope you enjoy reading!

The meeting in Brussels on 18 June 2009 was attended by around 75 experts from film heritage institutions from 24 European countries and 8 European professional associations. Georg Eckes (Deutsches Filminstitut - DIF) presented the EFG project. ...

Read more...

Aim of the EFG project is to build a web portal with direct access to over 700.000 objects including films, photos, posters, drawings, sound and text material. The project started with an inaugural meeting on 21 September 2008 bringing together representatives from the 20 partner institutions, including 14 film archives and cinémathèques of the EFG consortium. Working groups were formed to tackle the main challenges of the three year project:

Read more...

The Film Restoration Summer School 2009 is dedicated to train staff working in film archives and students in restoration and preservation of film heritage. Cineteca del Comune di Bologna has designed the training programme in cooperation with the Association des Cinémathèques Européennes (ACE) and the Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film (FIAF).

Read more...

The MIDAS project (Moving Image Database for Access and Re-use of European Film Collections) was initiated in 2006 as a pilot project in the MEDIA Plus programme of the European Commission. It is carried out by 18 institutions dedicated to collecting and preserving film heritage in Europe and coordinated by the Deutsches Filminstitut - DIF e.V. in Frankfurt. ...

Read more...

In Brief

On 1 September 2009, the National Audiovisual Archive (KAVA) in Finland joined the EFG consortium, which now comprises 21 partners from 15 European countries. Formerly called Finnish Film Archive, the state institution's primary motive has been and still is to save and preserve the Finnish film heritage. In 2008, the archive expanded its scope to all audiovisual material, radio programs and television programs, thus changing its name to National Audiovisual Archive.

On 31 December 2009, EFG partner Nederlands Filmmuseum joined forces with three other Dutch film institutions - Holland Film, the Netherlands Institute for Film Education (NIF) and the Filmbank - to form a new organisation, the eye Film Institute Netherlands. With this merger, the Dutch film world has gained a sector-wide umbrella institute that works to support national cinema culture. In 2011 eye will move to its new headquarters, an architectural landmark located along the bank of the Ij, across Amsterdam Harbour.
This year's edition of the Film Restoration Summer School/FIAF Summer School will start with theory lessons on film restoration via distance learning from 18 May to 22 June. During the Il Cinema Ritrovato film festival in Bologna (26 June - 3 July), the participants will be able to meet with international specialists before gaining restoration practice during the final two-week internship (5-16 July). Interested professionals are invited to submit their applications by 9 April 2010.

On 6 July 2010, the European Commission released the Second Implementation Report of the Film Heritage Recommendation. The Recommendation, adopted on 16 November 2005 by the EU Parliament and the Council, encourages Member States in establishing a long-term strategy for their national film heritage and identifies several fields of actions for safeguarding and promoting Europe’s film heritage. The new Report covers the issue of the digital turn and the question of how Members States deal with the transition from the analogue to the digital era.

Read more...

Národní Filmový Archiv:
First Special Collection DVD Awarded at II Cinema Ritrovato

The National Film Archive (NFA) in Prague has recently released the first title of a DVD edition, presenting less famous or forgotten film works along with an extensive set of bonus archival material. The diligently compiled DVD featuring 'Marijka the Unfaithful', Vladislav Vanèura's courageous attempt of a realistic depiction of life in the remote region of Subcarpathian Ruthenia in the 1930s, was awarded as 'Best rediscovery of a forgotten film' at this year's Il Cinema Ritrovato film festival in Bologna.

Read more...

Upcoming Events

30 September -1 October: EFG Plenary Board Meeting, Frankfurt, Germany
http://www.europeanfilmgateway.eu/plenary2010.php

4 - 5 October: Conference of German Europeana Aggregators “Deutsches Kulturerbe auf dem Weg in die Europeana“, Berlin, Germany
http://www.armubi.de/tagung2010

6 - 8 October: EUscreen Plenary and International Conference “Content Selection Policies and Contextualisation”, Rome, Italy
http://www.euscreen.eu

13 -14 October: European Conference in the Framework of the Belgian EU Presidency “Audiovisual Archives in the 21st Century”, Ghent, Belgium
http://www.ava21.be/en/index.php

14 -15 October: Europeana “Open Culture“ Conference 2010, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
http://version1.europeana.eu/web/europeana-plenary-2010

15 October: Meeting of the Cinema Expert Group: Subgroup Film Heritage, Brussels, Belgium
http://ec.europa.eu/avpolicy/reg/cinema/experts/index_en.htm

15 -18 October: FIAT/IFTA World Conference 2010 “Making it Real – Keeping it Real”, Dublin, Ireland
http://www.conferencepartners.ie/fiat_ifta

2 - 6 November: AMIA/IASA Annual Conference, Philadelphia, USA
http://iasa-amia-2010.com

12 - 14 November: UCLA/INA Symposium “Reimagening the Archive – Remapping and Remixing Traditional Models in the Digital Era”, Los Angeles, USA
http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/reimagining/index.htm

17-19 November: Archimages10 “L’œuvre audiovisuelle dans les collections d’art contemporain“, Paris, France
http://www.inp.fr

26 November: PrestoPRIME Digital Preservation Workshop, London, UK
http://wiki.prestospace.org/pmwiki.PublicWorkshop2010