The 33rd session of UNESCO’s General Conference adopted 33 C/Resolution 53 to proclaim 27 October as World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, in commemoration of the adoption, in 1980 by the 21st session of the General Conference, of the Recommendation for the Safeguarding and Preservation of Moving Images. While the Recommendation has helped to raise awareness of the importance of our audiovisual heritage and has been instrumental in ensuring the preservation of this often unique testimony to economic, political and social development for future generations, more efforts are needed as audiovisual recordings are particularly vulnerable and require special attention for their long-term security. The anniversary of the adoption of the Recommendation is considered a timely opportunity to launch a movement in recognition of the benefits of the preservation of audiovisual heritage. Sound recordings and moving images are extremely vulnerable as they can be quickly and deliberately destroyed. Essentially emblematic of the 20th century, our audiovisual heritage can be irretrievably lost as a result of neglect, natural decay and technological obsolescence. Public consciousness of the importance of preservation of these recordings must be engaged and the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage is intended to be the platform for building global awareness.

FORUM: World Audiovisual Heritage Day 2020 "Your Window to the World".

Audiovisual materials as documentary heritage objects provide a Window to the World as we observe events we cannot attend, we hear voices from the past who can no longer speak, and we craft stories that inform and entertain. Audiovisual content plays an increasingly vital role in our lives as we seek to understand the world and engage with our fellow beings.

CCAAA Declaration on World Day for Audiovisual Heritage 2020; October 27th.

2020 has been an exceptionally challenging year so far, with the COVID-19 pandemic bringing the world to its knees. Although we cannot yet fully grasp the economic, social, and cultural impact this major crisis will have on our societies, it has already exacerbated existing humanitarian and political crises in many parts of the world; it has brought mass unemployment, further exposed inequities within our communities, and created new epicenters of hunger. During this time of social distancing and social unrest, audiovisual materials in the form of sound recordings, film, and video have provided crucial documentary evidence of both atrocities and triumphs of the human condition.

The CCAAA, along with other documentary heritage partners, co-signed UNESCO’s statement “Turning the threat of COVID-19 into an opportunity for greater support to documentary heritage” in order to stress the importance of recorded materials and promote the preservation and accessibility of audiovisual content. Audiovisual materials as documentary heritage objects provide a window to the world as we observe events we cannot attend, we hear voices from the past who can no longer speak, and we craft stories that inform and entertain. Audiovisual content plays an increasingly vital role in our lives as we seek to understand the world and engage with our fellow beings.

It is true that audiovisual materials are not inert and the archives that preserve them are not apolitical. While audiovisual recordings provide documentary evidence, they can also be highly mediated to tell a story from a specific perspective. At worst, they can be used to tell a false narrative. At best, they can be used to tell stories that would otherwise be silent. They can tell your story, your truth, your existence.

CCAAA.

Message from Ms Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, 27 October 2020.

Mexican poet and former Director-General of UNESCO, Jaime Torres-Bodet, once said that archives are not “vast cemeteries” but places crucial to the “continuity of human conscience”. Spanning the breadth of history, archives are filled with more than just parchment and paper, they are a treasure trove of infinite variety. All that humanity has ever produced is an archive, from everyday objects to formal documents. In the long history of recording our human experience, thanks to admirable technical innovations, sounds and images no longer need be ephem eral. As a duty to future generations, this very specific and exceptional heritage, both fragile and technologically challenging, requires special attention.

This World Day provides an opportunity to highlight such heritage, which is too often sung due to its ubiquity in our lives. Too many documents are indeed lost, damaged or erased due to negligence, poor storage practices and obsolete formats or lack of means of reading them. They sometimes even fall victim to conflicting interests. Their disappearance, however, constitutes a regrettable loss for all the peoples of the world, against which UNESCO is determined to fight.

In 1992, our Organization launched the ambitious Memory of the World Programme, which aims to safeguard documentary heritage in all its forms by closely associating archivists, librarians, as well as heritage and conservation professionals. In 2001, after years of efforts to find and restore the film reels, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis was the first film to be listed on the Memory of the World Register. Now complete and fully digitized, this exceptional testimony to the visual and cinematographic arts, as well as to architecture and urban development, is now accessible to all and preserved for future generations. This same ambition led us to undertake the digitization of UNESCO's archives and historical audiovisual collections. This project has resulted in a digital archive of hundreds of thousands of documents, thousands of hours of sound recordings, thousands of photos and many hours of video, all fragments of lives and knowledge testifying to the commitment of entire generations. Digitizing this wide-ranging content pays them tribute and continues their fight for the common good. The unrelenting audiovisual output and the constant diversification of formats nonetheless require ever increasing technical means and human dedication in orderto preserve this extraordinary heritage.

This World Day is therefore an opportunity to redouble our efforts in the preservation of our common audiovisual wealth, which forms an essential part of our shared history.

UNESCO Director-General.

ACTIVITIES: The United Nations observes World Day for Audiovisual Heritage on October 27th. In New York Headquarters, a team of archivists worked around the clock to protect almost 40,000 records.

Activities and events that take place during the day include:

• Competitions, such as a logo contest, to promote the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage;

• Local programs organized as a joint effort between national film archives, audiovisual societies, television or radio stations, and governments;

• Panel discussions, conferences, and public talks on the importance of preserving important audiovisual documents;

• Special film screenings.

EVENTS: Join us on 27 October 2020 for World Day for Audiovisual Heritage by posting your events to this page. Promote justice, equity, and peace through audiovisual recordings. Celebrate the triumphs in your community and entertain us with your story. Show us your window to the world.

• UNESCO CELEBRATIONS

27 October: UNESCO zoom event — Documentary Heritage at Risk: Policy gaps in digital preservation

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the urgent need for universal access to documentary heritage as a knowledge resource, particularly as memory institutions seek to reopen their doors to the public. Alongside this is the near lack of enabling policies for preserving and giving access to documentary heritage items. This is further exacerbated by the dwindling of funds available to archives, libraries and museums, increasing the risk of permanent loss of heritage. Against this background, UNESCO is organizing an online policy dialogue among memory institutions and other stakeholders aimed at identifying policy gaps in the digital preservation of documentary heritage at risk.

• CCAAA EVENTS Promote justice, equity, and peace through audiovisual recordings

AUDIO/VIDEOS Materials