Images of Africa Training Programme: A Workshop on Memory and the Development of Archives

Images of Africa Training Programme: A Workshop on Memory and the Development of Archives

From 5 to 13 May 2014, the directors of the seven training centres funded by the Images of Africa Training Priority Solidarity Fund will attend a workshop in Accra to discuss the issues and problems linked to preserving archives and protecting Africa's audiovisual and cinematographic heritage.

This workshop forms the second initiative of a programme seeking to professionalise training centres in Sub-Saharan Africa that offer courses to those working in television and radio.

The aim of this training workshop, which will bring together around 20 or so directors from six different countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Niger, Ethiopia, South Africa and Ghana), is to raise awareness of the historic, cultural, educational and economic worth of audiovisual archives. It also seeks to paint a clear picture of the technical and commercial issues surrounding archives, and strengthen the abilities of those attending to implement plans to protect and digitise collections. Lastly, this meeting will form a highly useful discussion forum for the participants, and give them the opportunity to exchange ideas on how to manage and preserve their audiovisual archives.

The workshop will be led by Thierry Rolland, director of Atelier des Archives, Corinne Caporiondo-Prost, who is in charge of developing the collections of the French National Audiovisual Institute, and Audrey Gregoire, the archivist for the French television series Afrique(s).
Experts from Africa, such as Judith Opuko-Baoteng, an archivist at the Institute of African Studies in Accra, and Stanley Eboah, the Technical Director of the Ghanaian National Film and Television Institute, will also lead discussions and present their proposals for safeguarding audiovisual archives.

The workshop will begin with a screening of the documentary Perished Diamonds produced by the Ghanaian filmmaker Anita Afonu, which focuses on the struggle to preserve Ghana's cinematographic heritage.

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