Seminar on the preservation and promotion of audiovisual heritage in Cape Town

The France-South Africa Seasons 2012-2013, Ina and its partner DOXA will hold a 2-day seminar on audiovisual archiving at the Fugard Theatre in Cape Town, on 13 and 14 November 2012.

The main purpose of this seminar will be to raise the interest of local actors in the different steps of setting up a preservation and digitization plan. The programme will offer key players in the sector an opportunity to develop professional, commercial, cultural and educational uses of archives and reinforce knowledge and techniques related to the archiving policy of television and film collections.

Organised within the framework of the France-South Africa Reciprocal Seasons 2012-2013, discussions and workshops in the seminar will address questions such as:

• How to develop a professional, efficient digitization/preservation workflow with limited staff and resources?
• How to source project funding?
• How to best present our collections to the public and to potential funding holders?

This event was made possible through sponsorship and partnering with many organisations such as the National Arts Council of South Africa, Department of Arts and Culture and Total Garage. The speaker list comprises of veterans in the fields of archiving, research and the arts. SAHA Director, Catherine Kennedy will discuss issues of accessing visual archives from a user's point of view. Other speakers include Craig Matthews, Director of DOXA Productions and Verne Harris, Head of Centre for Memory, Nelson Mandela Foundation.

About the France-South Africa Seasons 2012-2013

This is an initiative conceived and facilitated by the governments of the two countries to give the people of France and South Africa an opportunity to understand each other better through cultural, scientific, sport, education and business engagement. The French Season in South Africa runs from June to November 2012 and compromises more than 100 exhibitions, performances, film screenings, literary events, workshops, conferences and round tables. The South African Season in France will take place from May to December 2013.

For several years, France has been engaged in a series of reciprocal Seasons with its key international partners (China, Japan, India, Turkey, Russia and Brazil among others). With South Africa, this will be the first time that a sub-Saharan country is involved in the Seasons with France.

The goal of these Seasons is to improve mutual understanding and contribute to the diversification of France's image in South Africa and South Africa's image in France by emphasizing the modernity and values that the two countries share.