2020 IASA - FIAT/IFTA Joint Conference

As cultural heritage organisations digitise their collections and increase public access, moving image portals provide audiences with virtual screening rooms to view our shared audiovisual history on demand. But the creative reuse of moving image archive material remains problematic, beset by questions of copyright law, rights clearance and “fair dealing” exceptions, and an archive sector without a common framework to open up access to this material for creative reuse by young filmmakers in education and the community.

How can we license moving image archive material for creative reuse by young filmmakers for education, training and community use? How can the creative reuse of this material increase community engagement with hidden cultural heritage and strengthen communities through new work created by emerging filmmakers reflecting on the past and developing talent for the future?

The Make Film History network, in partnership with the BFI Film Institute, BBC Archive Editorial, the Irish Film Archive and Northern Ireland Screen, addresses this problem by providing a new, sustainable model for the creative reuse of archive material for non-commercial use by young filmmakers in the UK and Ireland.

The network builds on the success of the Archives for Education project led by Dr O’Sullivan at Kingston University London: www.archivesforeducation.com. Supported by the BFI and BBC Archive Editorial, the project provides a new model for the creative reuse of archive film in higher education, giving student filmmakers access to archive material from the BBC and the BFI National Archive for creative reuse on course-related projects for the first time. 57 institutions have signed up to the scheme, allowing student filmmakers to connect their vision of Britain today with archival representations from their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.

67 institutions have signed up to the scheme, allowing student filmmakers to connect their vision of Britain today with archival representations from their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.
The panel will include project partners Kasandra O’Connell (IFI Irish Film Archive), Mark Macey (BBC Archive Editorial), Annabelle Shaw (BFI) and Francis Jones (Northern Ireland Screen).