The World Day for Audiovisual Heritage held annually on 27 October is a key initiative for both UNESCO and the Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations (CCAAA).
Around the world audiovisual archives join together annually on this day to celebrate their work with events that not only highlight the vulnerability of these valuable materials, but also to celebrate the often, unheralded work of the institutions that provide protection and preservation, ensuring their availability in the future.
For 2022, AFA’s Retrospective Programme’s showcase of the Japanese actress and filmmaker Kinuyo Tanaka highlights the very importance of preservation and protection of audiovisual materials. As a female filmmaker, Tanaka’s directorial work was often overlooked by film canon and was inaccessible to the wider public for generations. The new restoration of her work in the silent film Dragnet Girl (1931, dir. Yasujiro Ozu) was given new life by AFA through a newly-commissioned score by local musicians, allowing audiences to experience silent films. It is through preservation and restoration that we are able to share her directorial works to the current generation of audiences, and bear witness to her significance as a woman director in that era.
AFA archivist Chew Tee Pao will also be taking part in a panel discussion organised by the Perspectives Film Festival on the death of cinema and its spaces. He will be joined by Ananta Thitanat, the director of Scala; Ben Slater, script editor and writer; and Wong Han Min, a philatelist and reputable collector of film memorabilia with extensive knowledge of Singapore’s social history. The panel discussion will be held directly after Scala’s screening on Sunday, 30 November, 2pm. Learn more.
Watch the 2022 World Day promotional video and learn how we can protect our Shared History:
