Another week, another conference. This week I will be at the 3rd Global Audiovisual Archiving Conference #GAVA, with the amazing Thai Film Archive as host. My first time visiting this splendid institution in its complete form. My last trip here was when the 8 storey building was still under construction.
Straight out of our morning coffee break, we have Marek Jancovic, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, sharing the CINEAGRI project and its usage of RAG data retrieval pipeline to help the historical research of photochemistry of film. The ultimate goal is to help film preservation and film archiving - open digital resource
Marek's Live demo of the knowledge graph UI. Work in progress. A glimpse of how it can be used by film preservation.
(Tried uploading a 237 MB video but it timed out. Had to transcode it to 480p, down to 37 MB before it successfully upload)
After lunch, we hear from Zoe Baru, National Film Institute, Papua New Guinea, and Jacqui Uhlmann, NFFA on NFSA-NFI partnership. Co-design model. First Nation's-led origins. Funding from Australian govt.
Collaborative Preservation - lead by NFSA, guided by NFI. Best copies were selected - e.g. If NFSA has a better copy, that copy is selected.
Finally session of day 1 of #GAVA2026, we have a performative lecture "Against Archival Amnesia: Ratna Asmara and Collective Acts of Recovery" by Kelas Liarsip - Umi Lestari, Julita Pratiwi, Efi Sri Handayani. The lecture explored the Kelas Liarsip's adventure of identifying, preserving and restoring Dr Samsi by Ratna Asmara, women's filmmaking, Indonesian women's movement and alternative historical narrative.
Day 2 of #GAVA2026, missed some morning sessions due to meetings. Back after coffee break to Corn, Peanut, Garlic and Film Objects: Media Rurality and the Post-Socialist Archive by Xin Zhou, Concoedia University, Montreal.
China. 80s, many films were state created, mainly for education and also to spread ideology. We watched a short clip on how to rear chickens. Now derelict and abandoned. Who is archiving these films?
NOW: Barefoot Archivist Wisdom in Tropical Zones: The "Guerilla Archiving" of Super 8 film in Piyamit Village by Fong Jia Min, independent audiovisual archivist, Taiwan-based Malaysian.
Jiang Ping and Jiang Hua - guerilla former member of the Marxist-Leninist unit of the communist party of Malaya. Footage of their survival journey, guerilla activities, visiting delegation and combat situations in 71 reels, Beta and VHS.
Guerilla archiving - improvised film storage container using local materials Ba-ma resin + diesel, handmade waterproof zinc container, dry-roasted rice as dessicant 🤯😲😲
#AVArchiving #FilmArchiving #GuerillaArchiving #GAVA2026 #GAVA
Day 3 #GAVA2026, we start with Myanmar Film Heritage, Local Activation and International Collaboration. On the panel are @lisabonarahman (FIAF), @Mengchun, Okkar (Save Myanmar Film), Sanchai (Thai Film Archive), Linh Anh (UNESCO).
We hear the origin story of Thai Film Archive from Sanchai. Dome Sukvong, founder, insisted that TFA has to be part of the government because it is a non-profit endeavour, no private company would fund a loss-making entity.
Sanchai also shared the context surrounding AEC+FIAF Film Preservation Workshop 2017. This is one of the formative trainings I've received and some of us in this cohort are now active in the audiovisual archiving community in our region. After this, TFA kept up with at least one big training workshop per year. There's even virtual training editions during the pandemic.
At the same panel, @Mengchun gave us a brief update on the technology side of the project. S/o to David Walsh's digitisation project workflow (FIAF Technical Commission). Workshop is necessary because film scanning is just one step in the whole process. [This resonates deeply as I have done similar presentation about magnetic media digitisation is just one step. I'm also really glad to ses #DigiPres principles here.]
Living Archives and Indigenous Knowledge: Audio-Visual Documentation Among Climate-Vulnerable Orang Asli Communities by Hani Salwah Yaakup, Universiti Putra Malaysia.
Project uses audiovisual documentation to document indigenous knowledge, using visual ethnography and participatory recording approach. Focus on climate memory and environmental knowledge. Goal of the project is to train orang asli to archive their own knowledge.
#GAVA2026 #GAVA #AVArchiving #FilmArchiving #CommunityArchiving
joshuatj