FIAT/IFTA World Conference 2026

Esta sesión será en español / This session will be in Spanish

Dirigido a líderes de archivos institucionales, oficiales, no oficiales, comunitarios, activistas y autogestionados, de y en América Latina, motivades por encontrar nodos de convergencia en la práctica de liderar, gestionar, movilizar y hacer sostenibles proyectos o áreas donde se gestiona patrimonio audiovisual en la región.

Este taller propone un espacio de construcción colectiva a partir de preguntas orientadoras, donde exploraremos juntes cuáles son las competencias de un archivista audiovisual en nuestra región y qué habilidades específicas hemos tenido que desarrollar de acuerdo con nuestras realidades divergentes: la influencia del clima político y social actual y de los gobiernos, la noción de riesgo, la adaptabilidad y la defensa de la causa en entornos mediados por situaciones críticas recurrentes.

A través de dinámicas participativas, invitaremos tanto a personas con trayectorias largas como a nuevas liderazgas a compartir cómo se han integrado a las dinámicas de nuestro campo, cómo la profesión se ha (o no se ha) profesionalizado, cómo nos relacionamos con las buenas prácticas del Norte Global, y cómo comunicamos y educamos a nuestras audiencias y comunidades de interés sobre los archivos audiovisuales.

Como resultado del taller, construiremos de manera colectiva un póster para ser compartido públicamente, en el que podamos reconocernos y potenciar aquellas características que definen a las y los archivistas audiovisuales de nuestra región.

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Aimed at leaders of institutional, official, non-official, community, activist, and self-managed archives, from and in Latin America, motivated by finding points of convergence in the practice of leading, managing, mobilizing, and sustaining projects or areas where audiovisual heritage is managed in the region.

This workshop proposes a space for collective construction based on guiding questions, where we will explore together what the competencies of an audiovisual archivist are in our region, and what specific skills we have had to develop according to our divergent realities: the influence of the current political and social climate and of governments, the notion of risk, adaptability, and advocacy in environments shaped by recurring critical situations.

Through participatory dynamics, we will invite both those with long careers and new leaders to share how they have integrated into the dynamics of our field, how the profession has (or has not) become professionalized, how we relate to best practices from the Global North, and how we communicate and educate our audiences and communities of interest about audiovisual archives.

As a result of the workshop, we will collectively build a poster to be shared publicly, in which we can recognize ourselves and highlight those characteristics that define audiovisual archivists in our region.

[Simultaneous translation POR-ENG will be available]

A significant portion of the collection managed by Empresa Brasil de Comunicação (EBC), a federal public broadcasting company, was produced before the company was established. The state-owned company was created by Law No. 11,652 of April 7, 2008, and all assets previously managed by the Roquette Pinto Educational Communication Association (Acerp) and Radiobrás were transferred to EBC. Although the transfer of assets was provided for by law, this was not sufficient to avoid questions regarding the ownership of this collection. In addition to the legal aspects, the lack of existing documentation on the audiovisual and radio works created challenges for management, particularly regarding licensing, access, and distribution.

The growing interest among audiovisual professionals, teachers, researchers, and students in the content produced over the course of 100 years of Brazilian public broadcasting history calls for solutions to existing challenges and strategic decision-making to enable access to and dissemination of this collection.
Accordingly, the purpose of this presentation is to share the experience of the Archive and Research Management Department (GARPE)—which oversees EBC’s collection—in addressing these challenges and the measures being taken to find solutions that ensure broader access, dissemination, and licensing, not only for students and professionals in the audiovisual industry but for society as a whole.

The presentation will be about how we gain the trust of the filmmakers and their subjects, about finding new collaborations and how this method is a gateway for us into communities that were hard to reach.


As the main example the presentation will be about Boy from the Dessa, a documentary series about Indonesian born musician Rudy Lentze, who came to the Netherlands as a baby. Rudy Lentze's personal history takes the viewer through major social and historical developments, including the colonial history of the Dutch East Indies, immigration, and the challenges of building a life from a complex migration background. Rudy's idiosyncrasy is rooted in the fascinating life story of a man born in Indonesia to an "Indo" father (with German roots) and a Sundanese mother, who was raised in the Netherlands. He grew up in a disrupted family caught between clashing cultures and nearly succumbed to it all — depression, anxiety, drug use, and alcohol. Still, like a classic (anti-)hero, Rudy managed to largely overcome his troubled youth and personal problems. Music was his salvation. 


This documentary is a collaboration between the filmmakers and the Archive. From the start we endorsed the making of this film, helping with finding and digitising the archive material, and in return we acquired the rich Lentze family archive, one of the few family archives of an Indonesian family. Including a lot of film- and videoreels, and audiotapes. This is part of an ongoing collaboration with filmmakers from Greater Groningen, mainly, but not exclusively through our themed website www.poparchiefgroningen.nl (the Groningen Poparchive). We help the artists, they add to our archive. With doing so we reach a different audience and we diversify our collection in an organic way. We have more than 30 'Rockumentaries' online, and with Boy from the Dessa as the latest feature, the archive is firmly rooted in that part of society. Regional stories, embedded in the national history.


The documentary series will be made available afterwards for all participants of the World Conference.

Although local community experiences of the struggle leading up to democracy in South Africa are well documented, there is limited research on retrospective reflections regarding that time in the post-apartheid era. This study explores a body of audiovisual archives created by members of a local community in a 2024 art-creation event at the National Archives of South Africa. These depict experiences and memories of local people as they looked back on the struggle and are preserved in the archive’s collection.  The analysis of the audiovisual archives contextualises local community experiences as part of the attempt to construct their hitherto under-represented post-apartheid narrative for the purpose of historical continuity. It showcases the outcome of an active people-centred method to encourage and facilitate the creation of audiovisual archives in reclaiming cultural heritage as a tool of community engagement, resilience and resistance. This investigation reveals how community experience can generate audiovisual archives reconstruction of past experiences and memory and potentially lead to future healing.  

In the UK, Black homemovies have been historically under-collected and under-valued as a result of years of systemic and interpersonal racism. Distributed at the hands of those deciding what is of importance to collect, preserve and who they want to represent their country. Additionally, homemovies that are categorised to represent Black life in Britain are often through the gaze and context of the onlooker, leading to inaccurate, dangerous and racist storytelling and cataloguing. 


In response, ‘Undocumented’ sought to address these historical absences and inaccuracies. The first year of the project focused on building trust amongst the black community, introducing audiences to archives as a source of learning and inspiration but also making them aware of the gaps within them. This year was a vital foundation of uplifting the Black people as custodians of their own legacies and informing them that their homemovies are in desperate need of preservation. The second year focused on training 40 Black Screen Heritage Ambassadors, building confidence, skills, and trust in the archive sector, and supporting participants to digitise and preserve a selection of material. The 3rd year marks a significant step change: moving from training and initial collecting, into sustained ambassador activity and sector-facing leadership. 


In this presentation, we will discuss the results, learnings and challenges of this framework as a tool for other producers and researchers to utilise in response to gaps within archives and film history. Alongside this we will explain the conception of the programme, themes found in donated footage and key takeaways from participants regarding how this programme has developed them as Ambassadors of archive materials. We will also screen a trailer of the short-film ‘Custodians’ created by a programme participant Monalisa Chukwuma, which is a photographic and cinematic exploration of Black archival labour, community memory, and care. 

[This session will be in Portuguese. Simultaneous translation will not be available.]

The Museum of Image and Sound of Ceará (MIS CE) was established with the mission of preserving and promoting the state’s audiovisual heritage. Today, its collection is estimated at around 160,000 items, including part of the archive of Educational Television (TVE). Founded in 1974, TVE was created to produce educational content for the Ceará State Secretariat of Culture and Education through a tele-education system.
When the museum was founded in 1980, part of the TVE collection was incorporated into its holdings. This material includes records, 16 mm film reels, and slides. As one of the earliest collections within MIS CE, it was affected over time by relocations and interruptions in preservation processes.
In 2022, the museum was reopened and expanded with a new annex building. This facility includes updated storage areas as well as preservation and digitization laboratories. With new technologies, such as a film scanner, the museum has significantly enhanced its ability to process and share its collections, particularly the TVE archive. A recent assessment helped identify losses that occurred during past relocations and determine how much of the collection still requires digitization.
During the digitization process, numerous materials of historical, cultural, and political significance to the state were identified. This collection reinforces the role of television archives in shaping identity, as it reveals transformations within communities and traces the development of regional social values.
In this context, the history of audiovisual production and television in Ceará - home to the third television station established in the region -, can now be revisited through previously inaccessible sources. It also opens new avenues for research into these materials, contributing to a broader understanding of television history in Brazil.

This presentation discusses ways in which Canada's public broadcaster is working to mobilize its vast archival legacy to support its reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. From the digitization of archival radio shows that aired in Indigenous languages, to analyzing historical coverage for its portrayals of Indigenous stories, CBC/Radio-Canada is advancing along its reconciliation journey by surfacing the truths embedded in its audiovisual past, in collaboration with Indigenous researchers and communities.

[Simultaneous translation SPA-ENG will be available]

​​​​TVN holds one of the most significant archives in Latin America, preserving the social, political, and cultural heritage of our country through audiovisual records of incalculable value. This archive represents an emblematic case of the destruction of a large part of its collection following the Military Coup in Chile on September 11, 1973. Over the years, it has been recovered and is recognized today for the preserved content that has largely allowed us to reclaim our history as a society and a nation during those years.


Television material (news and programs) kept in the TVN Audiovisual Archive and produced during the Popular Unity government (Salvador Allende) was ordered to be eliminated—including the footage of Pablo Neruda receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971. However, with a sense of historical protection, these materials were hidden for years until Chile returned to democracy. Their preservation was a risky method during years dominated by institutional violence and uncertainty. Today, we can feel proud and fulfilled in our duty as "guardians of history and memory," because this content has been a fundamental pillar for countless historical recovery programs. These programs have allowed us to recognize ourselves as Chileans, to know who we were and what our society was like before the Military Dictatorship—how cities, inhabitants, urban tribes, and music have changed.


During difficult times, one way to protect the archive content marked for elimination was to remove the cards from the manual catalog that detailed the material. We created minimal descriptions of images documenting protests against Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorial regime in the 1980s. The cataloging systems for this new material were insufficient, or their context had been lost. It was a slow and costly task, making it difficult to reconstruct the moments they were recorded. We had to conduct extensive research to re-catalog this material, searching through newspapers and frequently consulting the memory of journalists for accurate descriptions. It was only then—at a time when it was finally possible to speak of human rights, political violence, or detained-disappeared persons—that we truly grasped the importance of having preserved those images. This process was necessary to establish how events unfolded in accordance with history.
The digitization process of this Archive began in 2010 with a planned ingestion project tailored to our needs and our commitment to the social role of the archive, which is part of the Audiovisual Heritage of TVN, Chile's public television.
It is important to highlight the work of librarians and journalists in re-cataloging content from those dictatorial times, when language was tightly controlled, and beginning to use a new language that accurately described what the images showed regarding Human Rights, violence, repression, and detained-disappeared persons.
With the help of digitization, we have set the fundamental task of increasing data collection to improve user-centered planning for this archive. We continue to move forward with the ingestion of historical content, solving daily the challenges posed by such old materials and formats that are increasingly difficult to rescue, but which contain valuable content reflecting the lives of Chileans during a specific era.


The commitment the Archive assumes toward history and the collective memory of a country is remarkable: without archives, there is no memory, and when we speak of memory, we are speaking of preservation.


Our mission as the Archive of Chilean Public Television is to preserve the audiovisual heritage that belongs to all Chileans. It is within this mission that we have focused our work to fulfill the challenge and dream of making the content archived and preserved for over 55 years available to all of Chilean society.


Finally, I believe that a great "vision for the future" will mark our path as archivists, allowing us to fulfill our mission of preserving images as a reflection of our society's history, ensuring that through them, memory can reconstruct the life lived.

RTÉ Archives has, for many years, developed meaningful partnerships with cultural institutions, community organisations and memory networks across Ireland and the Diaspora. Central to this work is a commitment to meeting communities where they are, recognising that meaningful engagement with audiovisual heritage happens both in physical public spaces and online environments that people already use and trust. Through collaboration with museums, libraries, cultural centres and creative community initiatives, RTÉ Archives is able to open the collections of Ireland’s public service broadcaster in ways that cannot be achieved alone, supporting engagement and dialogue across all island of Ireland and diasporic contexts.
Aligned with FIAT/IFTA’s 2026 theme, “Audiovisual Memories as Spaces of Dialogue”, the presentation illustrates how cross‑institutional and community partnerships enable audiovisual archives to function as dynamic civic resources. Working across physical public spaces, online environments and specially designed, curated applications, these initiatives demonstrate how innovative uses of audiovisual archival collections can support inclusive dialogue and meaningful engagement with shared histories across different communities, sectors and generations.

[Simultaneous translation SPA-ENG will be available]

The project aims to rescue and to put into value the oldest surviving sound newsreels in Chile. Because they are in 35mm nitrate film, they are inaccessible to the public due to the lack of other film or digital copies. To achieve these objectives, the project includes the following stages: cleaning and physical restoration, 4K digitization, detailed cataloging, backup on LTO-9 tapes, and online publication via the Chilean National Film Archive's platform. These actions will allow for the registration, inventorying, and documentation of a valuable historical heritage collection, ensuring its long-term preservation and future availability for public use.


The collection of sound newsreels produced by the state-owned company Chile Films between 1944 and 1949 constitutes a valuable social, economic, and cultural record of Chile in the 1940s. These images and sounds are practically unknown to current generations, making their rescue, enhancement, and preservation essential for Chileans (and the world at large) to discover and to enjoy them. Because they were filmed nearly 80 years ago, the original film stock is now very fragile (nitrate film can spontaneously combust and, over time, becomes cloudy, making recovery impossible). Therefore, their digitization and transfer to more stable formats that allow for their preservation and dissemination are urgently needed.

Television historians inevitably have to contend with gaps when examining the audiovisual archives of broadcasters and preservation institutions, especially when searching for records from the medium’s early decades. However, this is a communication technology — and a domestic device — whose development has enabled audiences themselves to engage in practices of capturing and archiving content, a dynamic that has expanded significantly in the online environment.


Today, many TV fans make use of collective digital video-sharing platforms to upload recordings of old programs, originally captured on VHS tapes or DVDs. Some of these users have become known for this type of activity, at times receiving audiovisual materials from professionals who once worked behind the scenes in television. Not infrequently, clips made available by these fans are also used in contemporary productions focused on the careers of television personalities. Even the disputes between these viewer-archivists and active TV networks — dissatisfied with having recordings of their productions shared by third parties — ultimately attest to the recognition achieved by these fans, who are transformed into “professional-amateurs” as they demonstrate competencies related to the history of television in Brazil.


This paper discusses how the archives of viewer-archivists, as well as fandom practices attentive to past content made available by TV channels on their over-the-top platforms, have contributed to the preservation and narration of Brazilian television memory. Although fan archives are shaped by a curatorial dynamic guided by personal taste and affective investments, they constitute important sources for researchers due to their potential to house records that are no longer present in the broadcasters’ own archives. Moreover, fans dedicated to monitoring the streaming catalogs of TV networks shed light on the very archiving dynamics adopted by media conglomerates over time, revealing continuities, gaps, and reconfigurations in the criteria used for the preservation of television archives.

[Simultaneous translation SPA-ENG will be available]

This presentation reflects on how a practical archival task inside a Uruguayan television broadcaster evolved, over sixteen years, into a knowledge-driven system for managing, contextualising and reusing audiovisual memory.
The project began in 2010, when I was assigned the recovery of a historical television archive using only handwritten paper notebooks as the primary access tool. At the same time, much of the collection still existed on ageing analogue and early digital videotape formats (1-Inch Tape, U-Matic). To make the material accessible, I had to learn through experimentation how to clean, restore and digitise playback machines that were already several decades old.
Coming from a generation that experienced both analogue video culture and the first stages of digital editing, I combined broadcast operational knowledge with self-taught experimentation. Early attempts using Word documents and spreadsheets quickly proved insufficient for the speed and precision required in daily television production. This operational pressure led me to begin learning programming and databases in order to recreate the logic of the paper workflow in digital form: locating content quickly, identifying the correct tape, and later the precise timecode inside the material, find actors etc.
As newsroom demands increased, the system evolved continuously through real-world use, driven by requests from colleagues who relied on rapid access to historical footage. Even after the archive department was closed in 2020, the project continued independently, incorporating long-term preservation logic, production workflows, contextual metadata, artificial intelligence support and large-scale efficiency testing using a personal dataset of more than one million media assets collected over years of archival practice.
This case study explores how necessity, situated learning and broadcast reality can generate technological innovation from within archival work itself.
That's my story.

The Importance of Archives in Non-Fiction True Crime Series
The true crime genre has become one of the most widely consumed formats in contemporary audiovisual culture. From classic documentaries to series on digital platforms, one of its essential characteristics is the use of archival materials: police recordings, news footage, trial tapes, photographs, home videos, or excerpts from television programs. These elements are not merely visual resources; they form the foundation that provides credibility, depth, and legitimacy to criminal storytelling. I will talk about 

1. Archives as a guarantee of authenticity
2. Archives as a narrative tool
3. Archives and collective memory
4. Archives as a space of power and ethics
5. Archives as an instrument of public truth
6. The role of the archivist in non-fiction true crime series

[This session will be in Portuguese. Simultaneous translation will not be available.]

PAVIC – Audiovisual, Iconography, and Content Researchers is a Nationwide, a nonprofit professional association in Brazil. We were established to raise awareness of and give proper recognition to the research professionals working in cultural, artistic, educational, and entertainment markets.

Founded in January 2022, PAVIC brings together 196 research professionals. As an association, one of our key missions is to promote and strengthen this professional field, as well as to drive improvement and efficiency in the production processes within the audiovisual and cultural sectors, which directly enhances the quality of the final products.

In the audiovisual field, research professionals preserve the memory of the entire production process for films, series, and soap operas. This includes details about the raw materials—such as images, sounds, or characters, which is especially vital when dealing with archival materials.

In ongoing collaboration with audiovisual archive institutions, researchers actively engage in processes of reuse, reinterpretation, and cultural mediation of media collections, helping to preserve and celebrate this important memory.