FAUK AGM – Vice Chair gives a Review of 2018-19

FAUK Members met in London before Christmas for their quarterly meeting and AGM kindly hosted by FAUK Member, LONDON’S SCREEN ARCHIVES at their offices in Finsbury Park.

Matt Lee, Vice Chair of FAUK and Head of Film at the Imperial War Museum presented a review of 2018-19 to an AGM attended by a record number of members.

Matt described 2018-19 as
1. A Year of transition :

With SWFTA moving to its new venue, The Box, – a huge logistic operation, with new Adlib Film System and new staff etc
The decant of IWMs nitrate store and subsequent move to BFI facilities at Gaydon.
The BFI/YFA pilot testing of shared use of DPI and CID is still underway, and looking very promising. Another example of a collaborative model.

2. A Year if Status:
For the National Library of Wales Screen and Sound Archive. After a serpentine path, in mid‐June the HLF approved the bid by the National Library of Wales for £4.75 million to create a National Broadcast Archive for Wales – enabling the Library to add around 240,000 hours of radio and television footage (original and newly digitised) from BBC Wales to the National Library’s existing ITV Wales archive.
The National Library of Scotland and its Moving Image Archive achieved Scotland Archives Accreditation
Following a rigorous analysis of its processes, digital provision and public engagement, The National Library was awarded Archive Service Accreditation on 18 July.

3. A Year of Collaboration:
Northern Ireland Screen and the IFA have begun discussions around establishing a programme of onsite work shadowing, that would enable technical upskilling of Northern Ireland Screen staff and encourage cross border, collaborative working between the two organisations,

plus Workshops 4th June 2019 – MACE
MACE co‐organised the ‘Heritage Dot’ digital heritage conference which was held at the University of Lincoln on 3‐4 June. The event was supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund
During the Heritage Dot conference MACE hosted the FAUK quarterly meeting and held a workshop for technical archive staff focused on digital preservation.
A great initiative that was very well received to diversify and enhance inclusivity around what FAUK can offer to staff working in the wider moving image heritage sector. 31 people from FAUK Member organisations attended

and Accelerated transition from analogue to digital – outreach:
Exemplified by BFI Victorian Film – Digitising its entire collection of oldest material and making it accessible on BFI Player. Over 700 films. A great resource

NWFA continued research and digitisation of Calling Blighty ‐ Birkenhead and Brighton events ‐ with the former to see the recently discovered Blighty issue from the town. Great community and intergenerational engagement. BBC coverage
Screenings and distribution of Born a Rebel – 15 min film that commemorates 100 years of women’s suffrage. A dynamic and exciting use of digital content supplied by NEFA YFA NWFA = a vibing archival mash up!

Northern Ireland Screen’s work digitisation of its UTV collection, funded by DFC

SASE “New Town, Our Town” partnership with Film Hub South East – screening of archive material a project around gathering and filming memories of the community and tell the stories of new towns.

EAFA secured funding from Film Hub North for their programme Shifting Ground. The project involves working with a young programmer’s group at Firstsite, Colchester. The project supports the young programmers to produce a five minute film and trailer and to organise a screening.

The Chair, Clare Watson thanked hosts of all meetings across the year which saw Members have the opportunity to visit

Northern Ireland’s Digital Film Archive and the NI Public Record Office in Belfast,

The Silent Film Festival in Bo’ness, Scotland,

MACE and the University of Lincoln’s Heritage Dot conference and the

CIPPM (Centre for Intellectual Property Policy & Management) Conference held at Bournemouth University

and looked forward to another year of varied venues, and conferences/workshops/events.