Journal of Film Preservation - FIAF

Challenges of Film Archiving in
the 21st Century
David Francis
Second Century
Forum
Forum du
Second Siècle
Forum del
Segundo Siglo
This text includes the paper
delivered by David Francis at the
ocassion of the Second Century
Forum debate organized at the
57th FIAF Congress held in Seoul
in April 2002.
Ce texte a été présenté par
David Francis lors du débat sur
le Deuxième Siècle du cinéma,
organisé lors du 57ème Congrès
de la FIAF à Séoul en avril 2002.
Este texto fue presentado por
David Francis en el marco del
debate sobre el Segundo Siglo
del cine, organizado en el marco
del 57° Congreso de la FIAF en
Seúl en abril del 2002.
This forum is about the future of film archiving not about the future of
the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF). We need to address
the challenges of film archiving in the 21st Century before we consider
how FIAF can help archives solve the problems identified.
Changes in film technology have been infrequent and gradual and film
archivists have been lulled into a sense of false security. Even the major
changes that have occurred; the coming of sound; the demise of nitrate
raw stock and the introduction of subtractive tri-pack colour film; have
had little impact on their thinking.
It is probably surprising to the younger film archivist that there was
not more concern about the passing of nitrate. However, one must
remember that in 1951 archives were small organisations with minute
budgets that spent most of their time collecting the acknowledged
classics of world cinema. Archivists’ minds were not tuned to
appreciating the impact of such a change on the film experience.
The very first challenge for every film archive is to define its mission. In
the past, when the future of celluloid was assured, it was unnecessary
to have a clearly defined medium and long term plan. The new century
changed that situation dramatically. One approach would be to limit
activities to the acquisition, preservation and presentation of films
produced on celluloid and relevant paper materials related to them.
There is plenty of precedence for this. Many museums or art galleries
limit their collections to a period in history that has long since passed
and acquire and display no items made in the last hundred years or more.
However, this would mean in about twenty year’s time the film archive
would be dealing with a retrospective collection that spanned a finite
period of time, say 1895- 2025. After that only films made in those years
would be added to the collection. .
There are advantages and disadvantages of this approach. There is
plenty of work to keep an institution with this policy gainfully
employed for the whole of the century and probably far beyond.
Archives have in the past devoted most of their resources to nitrate
preservation but colour films remain virtually untouched and little has
been done to control the ravages of the vinegar syndrome and
dimensional instability. Also it will be possible to project films in
archive theatres long after new titles are no longer produced on
celluloid and the manufacture of film stock has ceased. It will always be
possible to build a 35mm film projector. This means that future
generations will be able to see films in the way the creative team that
made them intended. The experience of cinema will be secure which it
may not be in the digital environment.
However, it might be difficult for an archive with such a vision to get
the necessary public and private funding to continue its work. The film
18 Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002