Newmai News Network
Shillong | October 10
The Department of Mass Media, St. Anthony’s College, Shillong, inaugurated the North-East India AV Archive Summit on Thursday at the Conference Hall of the College.
The Archive was inaugurated by Kyntiewbor War from Mawshbuit who owns the ‘Ever Living Museum’. The archive is supported by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation of Japan and the department will also be collaborating with the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, Japan, which will be sharing its expertise.
During the inaugural event, a message from Shuichi Ohno, president, The Sasakawa Peace Foundation was read out. “TheSasakawa Peace Foundation has been conducting a project entitled ‘Preserving and Sharing Histories and Memories of Northeast India’ to last over the next three years and more. We aim at supporting cultural activities that allow local communities to preserve and share their experiences and history. Obviously, this Northeast India Audiovisual Archive is one of the most significant initiatives and today is really an epoch-making day for us.”
Along the same lines, Fujioka Asako, Board Member, Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (YIDFF) also expressed her best wishes to the archive through a video message.
Speaking on behalf of YIDFF, she said that this year, YIDFF has a special section for Northeast India titled ‘Rustle of Spring, A Whiff of Gunpowder: Documentaries from Northeast India’ and wishes that these selected films screened at Japan will also travel back to the northeast and get screened as a package.
The Northeast India AV Archive is an audiovisual public archive at the Department of Mass Media, St. Anthony’s College Shillong, India.
The Archive endeavours to be more than just a storehouse of nice trinkets of novelty, it will hopefully facilitate an activation of memories that have long been forgotten or are in the process of being forgotten and will be a significant repository of our legacy, and means of collecting knowledge and documenting history. Media archives in India have usually been institutes of academic or administrative nature, which intimidate common citizens. The Northeast India AV Archive strives to make the idea of archive popular and accessible. Existing both in online and offline the NEIAV Archive promises to be both enlightening and enjoyable experience for its users.
The materials present at the archive are documentary films, newsreels, interviews, amateur footage, sound recordings and photographs. This material relating to the eight states of northeast India exists in various analog and digital formats.
Currently at its beta version, the website of the archive - www.nearchive.in can also be accessed and more material will be added in the coming weeks and months. The Northeast India AV Archive, in its efforts to preserve valuable material from the northeast, invites individuals, organisations and institutions to access material of the archive (online or offline), contribute to the archive and also avail digitization facilities for audio-video material.
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