Case Studies

• NATIONAL FILM & SOUND ARCHIVE
• LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
• ABC
• US HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM PLAYER
• THE FORTUNOFF VIDEO ARCHIVE
• PEABODY ARCHIVES

National Film and Sound Archive

The Maninpa-laju ngurrakarti  project (pan-western desert phrase: “we’re giving this back to its home”)

The Maninpa-laju ngurrkarti project, a preservation partnership between the National Film and Sound Archive and Silver Trak Digital, was announced to coincide with the celebration of UNESCO’s World Day of Audiovisual Heritage. Focusing on Australian film and video that relates to the Australian Indigenous experience over the past century, the project digitally preserved 360 hours of material from the NFSA’s enormous audiovisual collection. Titles have been selected from the past one hundred years of film production and range from the earliest actuality footage of an Indigenous community Torres Strait Islanders (1898) to silent features like The Romance of Runnibede (1928) to amateur footage which recorded the life and customs of many communities such as the Mitchell River Mission (1945), to television ,feature and documentary titles of more recent years which document the strength of Indigenous identity today including editions of Imparja News or the award winning feature Ten Canoes (2006).

As technology further extends the possibilities for both preservation and the delivery of works, much of the moving image history which has been collected and protected by the NFSA over many decades may benefit from digital preservation options. Whilst the more traditional forms of preservation continue to support the NFSA’s commitment to maintain the original format of production, and hence the original experience of film in particular, Silver Trak’s DAMsmart! digital processes open up new opportunities for the effective management of massive collections of moving image holdings. The cornerstone of Silver Trak’s DAMsmart! video and film preservation business is its exclusive rights in Australasia to SAMMA Systems technology for automated migration of media assets. Working in collaboration with the NFSA whose commitment is the collection, preservation and dissemination of Australia’s audiovisual experience, the Maninpa-laju ngurrakarti  project allows for a unique balance between core preservation principles and the ultimate opportunity to provide material of significant Indigenous relevance to both the Indigenous communities themselves and to the wider public. This access would be provided after full consultation with both the formal and traditional owners of rights in the works.

As digital technology becomes firmly embedded in even the most remote of regions, this digital preservation project will assist the NFSA to ultimately return images and sounds of special importance for specific Indigenous communities around the country. The NFSA has established relationships with a number of communities including the Martu, the Pitjantjatjara, the Walpiri, the Galwink’ku, the Yankunytjatjara and the people of Mornington Island.