Your Experience of COVID-19

Like everyone else I was quarantined in my home in the first few months. Life was every inconvenient of course. You couldn't go to work. You couldn't go to restaurants. You couldn't have friends in your house. You couldn't go shopping . We were so grateful that we could still have food and packages delivered to our neighborhood thanks to our brave countrymen. It was they who sustained our lives. A big THANK YOU to them.

I cannot forget the news I watched everyday about Wuhan after it was locked down to save other provinces of our country. Many people there lost their lives or their loved ones. The doctors and nurses fought the deadly virus so courageously! Although they didn't have enough protection at first, they still risked their own life to save the patients. They did not complain. They knew we were all in the fight against this terrible enemy called COVID-19. I was also deeply touched by those brave medical volunteers who flew to Wuhan to help. Yes, when one corner of our country is in trouble brothers and sisters from eight corners will come to rescue. 

During this past seven months, China Film Archive was closed like almost all other institutes and companies in Beijing. My work during this season is normally about Beijing Film Festival and a few other regular film festivals. Since I mainly use emails to contact film archives and companies it does not matter that much whether I correspond with them in the archive or at home. Although it's uncertainty whether the festivals could be held, I still did my work and kept good contact with my usual partners overseas. I also quite enjoyed the online classes taught by our very knowledgeable seniors every day in the afternoon. That's a blessing in this work-at-home period.

When life was almost back to normal after seven months, we were all very excited to learn that Beijing International Film Festival would be launched at the end of August. On July 22 we enjoyed the grand opening of our newly upgraded theater with our colleagues and our die-hard cinephiles who told us they had been waiting for this day for ages. Following the order that movie houses should not admit more than 30% of their capacity, we put those colorful boards on the intermittent seats with words: "Please sit on the next one." Only 188 audience could sit in the big room with 621 seats. And everyone's temperature had to be checked before entering. In that way we could guarantee the safety of everyone. As I sit in the theater, I saw the Spring we had lost to COVID-19 happily coming back on the big new screen.

I feel proud that our country has managed to overcome the virus. It feels so good to see people coming back to China Film Archive to watch movies again as usual!

I have been working from home following the spring festival holiday. The past seven months have seen me transformed. The commuter who used to rise early to beat the rush hour traffic and breathe the fresh air has given way to the homebody who continues to be up before the birds to take morning reading courses. The hiker(pictured) who spent almost every Saturday or Sunday in the woods on the outskirts of Beijing has been replaced by the yoga enthusiast who has been doing yoga poses in the yard of her neighborhood. The chic woman who changed earrings daily to go with her outfit has been taken over by the old hat who settles for trackies throughout the day.           

Along with the flurry of personal challenges has come one important professional shift. In the context of the coronavirus outbreak, remote working has become the new norm. With the prospects of a vaccine still uncertain, however tactically we have handled our tasks, our organizations do not find life easy. Film archives, for all their expertise and experience in electronic records management, have not been ready to meet the crisis head-on. As the world is shifting amid the pandemic toward automation, artificial intelligence and digitization, it is high time for us to jump on the bandwagon.

Admittedly, many changes have been imposed on our operations, among which some will stick. All we need now is the courage to believe in ourselves and put one foot in front of the other and not stop.

Furthermore: the NFSA have a clearly defined mission and vision. Following a restructure in 2019 we have focused on becoming a digital organisation with a strong focus on ICT and technology, gradually building up our digital capabilities and capacity. This certainly helped the NFSA to manage the crisis when it occurred.

The NFSA was well-prepared; within a week of closing our doors to the public (18 March 2020), staff were able to work from home and were fully operational. When the Government announced on 23 March that working from home would be a necessity, the NFSA only required one day to return to business as usual and start our virtual operations.

NFSA’s key work continued throughout this period, across its three main activities: Collect, Preserve, Share. In terms of Collect and Preserve, new acquisitions and accessioning, as well as curatorial research, were all ongoing. The NFSA were also able to do reporting and clean-up of our media asset management system (our collection database). Collection digitisation works also continued, with key staff working onsite in Acton, NFSA’s headquarters in Canberra, Australia.

Certain tasks were not able to be performed, such as collection conservation, which requires hands-on work with physical collection items. While the NFSA were not able to have staff on-site at the vaults in Mitchell (ACT) during this period, the safety of the NFSA collection was never compromised.

The Share function saw the publication of previously unseen home movies showing for example Anzac Day through the decades, and the last known images of the extinct thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger. Both have reached large audiences online and through TV, radio and print stories – with the thylacine footage going global through extensive coverage in dozens of countries and languages.

The NFSA also continued to provide access to the collection to professional clients (filmmakers, artists etc).

The property team continued key restoration works to the heritage building in Acton, Canberra; these started in early 2019 and are now near completion. They also assessed the Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne operations, to ensure a COVID-safe working space for staff returning to its offices. They are currently working with NFSA’s Engagement team to prepare the public spaces ahead of the re-opening for the public on 1 August.

Internal communications were also essential. In addition to a new intranet and All Staff communications, NFSA launched a weekly video update from CEO Jan Müller, sharing the latest information about the COVID-management strategy, ongoing projects and achievements. Also ‘NFSA Social’ was launched, an internal platform to support social interactions during the work from home period.

From an NFSA perspective, this crisis has sparked strategic discussions around how the NFSA can reposition itself in a post-COVID world. This situation has accelerated NFSA’s digital transformation process, and successfully tested its adaptability (systems, policies, workforce). These discussions are ongoing.

CURATORIAL AND ACCESSIONING

The teams were able to continue their digital accessioning work, as well as research, writing and project development. They also held weekly internal seminars to share knowledge on key topics and projects and keep team communication flowing.
The NFSA could not accept delivery of new acquisitions on physical hard drives. Existing pilot programs based on cloud-solutions such as Dropbox and Amazon Web Services proved timely and were rigorously tested during remote working arrangements.

COLLECTION MANAGEMENT AND CONSERVATION

Everyone involved in work related to physical items, particularly those handling incoming collections, applied available COVID safety advice related to personal hygiene and surfaces.
For safety reasons, access to the NFSA’s analogue collections at the vaults was limited. The Collection Management team was able to complete its annual stocktake, and some staff were trained in duties they don’t usually perform.
The Collection Conservation team were able to update their procedures, conduct research and do further audiovisual conservation training online.

DIGITISATION

Digitisation continued to operate, albeit at a reduced yet steady pace. The NFSA had a limited number of collection material retrievals from the vaults in order to feed the digitisation workflow, and essential staff worked on a roster system, limiting the amount of people on site at any one time.

ACCESS TO THE NFSA COLLECTION

NFSA’s Access team remained busy and was able to continue delivering content to industry clients while working from home, with support from the ICT team.
It wasn’t without its challenges, such as intermittent issues with VPN access and varying internet download speeds at people’s homes, which in turn slowed down NFSA’s ability to retrieve digital collection items from the Media Asset Management system (Mediaflex), or to consult other internal records and databases.
The NFSA communicated clearly to the general public, stakeholders and clients, the changes to response times and workflows. Generally speaking, everyone was understanding to these changes and appreciative of NFSA’s operations during the height of COVID restrictions.

ENGAGEMENT

The NFSA had to temporarily close its doors to the public, which meant the cancellation of public programs (special events, film screenings, etc) and the postponement of NFSA’s Autumn/Winter exhibition. However, the NFSA recently announced the reopening on 1 August 2020, with a new visitor experience called Hive, which will give visitors an opportunity to explore stories about NFSA’s experts and the treasures preserved in the national collection.

On 23 March the NFSA launched a campaign called NFSA is Open Online, to promote the extensive range of content from the NFSA collection available to audiences on the online platforms. The NFSA published this list of categories as a starting point for people to explore content that appeals to their interests.

The NFSA also launched NFSA Live, a series of free online events streaming on Friday nights. These have included screenings of classic Australian films (Storm Boy, Sunday Too Far Away and Mabo: Life of an Island Man) featuring live filmmaker Q&As; an online version of the popular Canberra event Vinyl Lounge (pictured); among others. Recordings of events previously held at the NFSA were also made available for the first time, in a series of online blog posts titled Deep Dives.

STAFF

The NFSA is part of the Australian Pubic Service and as such, a small group of staff whose ability to perform their highly specialised roles was limited during this crisis, was selected to be temporarily re-deployed to Services Australia. For a number of weeks, they supported the unprecedented volume of payments, resulting from the Australian Government’s COVID relief plan. They have since returned to the NFSA.

Following directives from Federal, State and Territory authorities, NFSA staff were directed to work from home from 23 March 2020, with the exception of essential workers operating safely on-site in Canberra (mainly supporting collection digitisation, ICT and property management work). The NFSA had approximately 83% of its staff working from home.

The NFSA have conducted several surveys, to better support staff as well as plan for the return to the workplace.

In the initial survey, the majority of staff who responded felt supported and equipped to work from home. Positive feedback received included appreciation for the ICT setup which allowed everyone to stay, as well as for the regular video updates from the CEO and his commitment to his staff.
However, staff who were also home-schooling their children found the experience quite stressful and challenging. Some reported fatigue, anxiety and some uncertainty due to the change in work environments, in addition to the general anxiety of the COVID crisis.

Phase 1 of the NFSA’s return to the workplace plan started on 25 May 2020. Approximately 50% of the workforce has returned to the offices, in either a full-time or part-time capacity (combining office and home work). Phase 2 began on 1 July.

It’s undeniable that COVID had an impact on every single person and organisation on Earth. However, the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia was fortunate to have the infrastructure and, most importantly, innovative and resilient staff. This allowed the NFSA to remain highly productive and continue to deliver existing services as well as new ones.

For the first weeks, like so many of our museum colleagues around the world, we experienced a surge in requests for digital content to supply a wide variety of platforms, as everyone tried to shift their audiences to online participation. Our digital access person continued to come to the Collection Center a few days a week to fulfill these requests.

In fact, the Collection Center never entirely closed. The Collection Management team organized a rotating staff of 2 (down from our normal 35), to keep watch on the building, receive shipments, work with analog carriers and do digital fulfillment. In the first weeks they were busier than usual returning film to vaults, especially the nitrate material, and also [CC1] cancelling many activities. They also tried to prepare for a possible total lockdown, which never came but remains a possible future scenario, should the situation worsen with a "second wave".

During this period, we received quite a lot of film, as filmmakers and companies were busy cleaning out their own collections. Technicians and installers continued to come to the building, and we had a few infrastructure emergencies (street work caused a water pipe to break outside and a problem with the cable lines), so the decision to have someone in the building at all times proved the sensible one..

Our previous move taught us a lot.  

For the workers who stayed at home, there were a few who were not able to use computers, or didn’t have the proper equipment. For the rest, almost everyone switched over fairly quickly to working and meeting in Microsoft Teams and using a VPN to connect to databases and programs hosted at Eye. This would not have been possible without a strong and organized IT team, who had the infrastructure in place already. The Collection Center staff has been allowed to work remotely since 2016 when the new  building opened with flex-desks. In retrospect, the move of the collection gave us some relevant experience for the lockdown, as during that time we also continued many operations (Archival Sales, digital access, ingest, cataloging), while relocating and setting up offices.

One interesting aspect was to see which functions could be performed remotely and which could absolutely not. Some colleagues were kept very busy trying to organize "home-work-packages" for those who would otherwise be forced to be idle. The result is a substantial clean-up of our metadata. We also made the unorthodox decision to deliver materials (using our professional transit company)  to colleagues at their “home offices”. Since we already trust our co-workers to handle unregistered materials in a professional way on the Museum premises, we felt that a change of scene wouldn't influence their ethics, and we decided to send them lower-risk carriers which they could review at home, like VHS tapes and Pathé-Baby cassettes. We can proudly report that our Pathé-Baby collection is much better catalogued than it ever was, and that we found a film in a stencil colored copy that appears to be unique (Le Gladiateur combattant, Pathé 1911)

We gratefully acknowledged that our challenges were so much less than many other archives: we received news from the Management Team that we were financially stable, and could continue our employment contracts, and our digital infrastructure was able to sustain working from home. But we still missed the human support of seeing our colleagues: for the staff who lived alone, it became a surreal and lonely time, and the staff with children, including myself, had to become part-time teachers overnight, which meant that our attention was divided. Eye supported this time at home as best it could, by giving people time to adjust in the first weeks, by arranging organization-wide Zoom updates (150 people), and allowing employees to bring home their office chairs to create home offices, among other gestures of support. 

I miss having lunch together.

Perhaps the biggest thing I personally miss is our daily communal lunch table, which was a great place to pick up knowledge: often filled with guests from other archives, interns and colleagues, all giving updates, casually discussing problems and solutions. I miss listening to a group of people, and coming up with brainstorms together. Because I practice “management by walking around” and count a lot on the synergy of conversations with various film archivists, curators, restorers, and researcher, my biggest challenge working from home is this sort of casual knowledge-gathering and chance connections. I find this very hard to replicate online, or even though I have taken up the practice of having “walking lunch meetings” outdoors with an invited colleague.

In the Film Conservation and Digital Access department, we learned to sort our communication into various channels that roughly mimicked our previous IRL interactions:  emails for formal, documented communication, direct phone calls for nuanced discussions, and WhatsApp for all the fun chatter that makes a strong office culture: we shared photos of empty Amsterdam during lockdown, our makeshift home offices, our first face mask purchases, food shortage news, favorite obscure streaming platforms, corona rumors and fears, birthday wishes.  

Back to work, with new plans.

Since mid-June, we have been allowed back in the office in small groups. It has been a good test for everyone to take a pause and see which parts of their work are  still necessary and relevant, and which parts can be done differently, now that they’ve been doing them remotely. Certainly we all have a new appreciation for keeping surfaces clean, for working with objects and understanding contamination.  Our small screening room is open again, but can only hold about 15 people, sitting apart, and that may change as we hear more about transmission risks. Some collaborative work, especially with international colleagues like the work I do with FIAF, and the curators’ work planning screenings and festivals, or writing articles, never changed, and many of our curators and information specialists may well work from home more often in the future. I personally hope that the Collection Center returns to its busy former self, as an information hub, with loads of visitors, interns, lectures and screenings. Hopefully we can get back to that, and that we can welcome you all soon back to Amsterdam!

Anne Gant, July 10, 2020, with help from Catherine Cormon

One thing is for certain.  The Zoom meeting with the other members of the FIAF executive committee was a valuable opportunity to connect with archives across the world to better understand what is occurring and how to possibly proceed.  Most of all, it was a welcome chance to see friendly, supportive faces and catch up on our lives these past few months.

The few days before the quarantine closed our AQSHF archive and library, I was in Zurich, Switzerland showing a selection of Albanian films.  Since I have taken this position as director of the archive, I have made it a priority to try to get our unknown but rich cinema heritage out into international cinematheques and museums.  In the past year, we had several successful retrospectives of Albanian film throughout Europe.  

But with this disruption, not only is this momentum halted, but it has also halted the programming we had been attempting to carry out here in our capital, Tirana.  

Right before the shutdown, we had been planning to have a selection of films made by my hero, the cinema master Chris Marker, in collaboration with the French embassy and the Cinémathèque Française.  But with this crisis, events and retrospectives like these are seriously in doubt.  

The overwhelming majority of our movie theaters show Hollywood product.  To convince these exhibition spaces to let us do a few (or even a single screening) is often a difficult task.  And in this new landscape, we are left to face the fact that in the upcoming months, many of these theaters may simply disappear.

Most of our employees are continuing to work on-line.  Now that permission has been granted, two of our specialists come to the archive facility three times a week to check on the vault conditions and our recently-acquired dehumidifiers.  17 of our film prints were out of our collection when the crisis began.  15 have been returned, the remaining two are being kept safely in the vaults of our sister archives.

I feel some sadness as I read the other entries of FIAF's "Experience of COVID-19" about other archives continued efforts toward digitisation.  We are still without a scanner or even a proper film cleaner.   Fortunately, even though we have fallen behind our agreed-upon schedule, we are still proceeding with the digitisation of all photos and paper materials, a project supported by the MEAP's UCLA grant.  Step by step, as we say here in Albania.

During the complete lockdown, we lost one of our most popular actors, Rikard Ljarja.  During the 1960s when Albania was a Marxist nation, its superpower ally was China.  At the time of China's Cultural Revolution, the only foreign movies that could be shown were from Albania.  In 1967, Rikard starred in a film seen by millions of Chinese moviegoers, a black and white drama entitled "Ngadhnjim mbi vdekjen" (Victory Over Death).  Late last year, we honored Rikard with a theatrical screening of a film he wrote and directed in 1980 which was banned during the dictatorship, "Skëterrë '43" (Hell '43).  

No one but his family could attend his funeral.   But the day after he died, a crowd, safely distanced, stood outside the apartment block where he lived, as his coffin was brought down.  As the hearse drove away, the craftspeople who made our films and cinema enthusiasts broke into applause.  Thinking about this moment, it gives me some hope and makes me believe that the love for our images will always endure.

In order to help maintain a connection to our loyal audience through these tough times, TIFF has partnered with online/cable streaming platform Crave to present Stay-at-Home Cinema. This series includes online introductions by TIFF co-head Cameron Bailey and special guests for programming on Crave. For more information, please visit: https://www.tiff.net/stayathome

In addition, TIFF continues to explore possibilities for launching our own streaming platform. Please don't hesitate to reach out to either Michelle or Brad Deane if you would like more info.

The Film Reference Library team recently completed an in-depth 35mm film inspection and assessment project, made possible through grant-funding from Library and Archives Canada's Documentary Heritage Communities Programme. Our goals for the project are to identify films in need of preservation (digital) or preventive care, and to archivally re-house materials as necessary. 300 films have been assessed for preservation, de-accession and/or divestment depending on condition, and relevance to TIFF's collecting mandate. We are also using this time to focus on quality control of our collections management database MIMSY, with a particular focus on reviewing and fulsomely cataloguing all film inspection reports from 2008 - Present.

The Library team is also reviewing best practices for objects handling and reopening across the GLAMs sector, and recently drafted a protocol for re-opening the research centre as part of our COVID preparedness strategy.

We look forward to connecting will our fellow FIAF members in the coming weeks to share best practices on programming, preservation, and research services during COVID.

Tous, forcés et contraints, avons dû bouleverser nos habitudes. Et des choses qu’il semblait difficile à mettre en place ont pu se réaliser très vite, notamment dans l’utilisation exponentielle des ressources numériques. Ce n’est évidemment pas le cas pour tous nos collègues dans tous les pays, et je sais, hélas, que pour beaucoup d’entre nous cette crise a été – et est – catastrophique.

Mais je dois avouer que du côté de la Cinémathèque suisse, nous avons pu surmonter la période la plus critique sans trop de dégâts. Peut-être parce que nous autres Suisses vivons dans une obsession maladive à nous préparer aux catastrophes. Rappelons quand même que, au 20ème siècle, nous avons toujours été prêt à des plans de défense militaire presque exagérés durant les deux dernières guerres mondiales (auxquelles nous avons pourtant échappé). Et nous sommes, avec la Suède je crois, l’un des seuls pays au monde qui, dès le début des années 60, ait obligé la population à intégrer la construction d’abris antiatomiques dans chaque nouveau bâtiment… Aujourd’hui ces plus de 300'000 abris, capable d’abriter théoriquement 110% de la population suisse, sont désormais aussi de formidables locaux de répétitions pour les musiciens de rock, de bonnes caves à vin, des dépôts en tout genre, et des lieux d’accueils plutôt tristes pour des réfugiés et des SDF.

Il faut le dire : durant le semi-confinement, les autorités suisses, prônant plus les recommandations que les ordres (encore une habitude très suisse), ont autorisé les entreprises et les institutions à travailler, en respectant au mieux les mesures d’éloignement préconisées. Ainsi, nous avons toujours pu maintenir nos locaux entrouverts au personnel, avec peu de personnes présentes mais suffisamment pour assurer à la fois la sécurité des collections, la gestion administrative, la réception et l’envoi de colis. Ce qui a aidé à la mise en place et au fonctionnement de ses activités numériques.

Très vite, grâce en particulier aux efforts des spécialistes IT, les collaborateurs de la Cinémathèque suisse ont pu bénéficier d’accès VPN sécurisés pour entrer dans les bases de données et les fichiers des ordinateurs laissés au bureau, d’abonnements pour les visioconférences, voire même d’accès spécifiques pour faire de l’ingest numérique et de la restauration à distance.

Pour le public, nous avons ouvert deux plateformes numériques sur Vimeo, l’une offrant gratuitement un film classique restauré par semaine, et l’autre proposant des courts métrages rares de la collection, également restaurés, le tout complété par une activité très riche sur les réseaux sociaux, avec notamment des quizz « Septième art et confinement » sur Instagram, des hommages à des personnalités disparues sur Twitter ou encore des affiches de nos collections sur Facebook.

Cette vitalité remarquable a aussi, dans certains cas, amélioré certains rapports de travail. Comme le relève notre collègue madrilène Josetxo Cerdán dans son texte, la distance du télétravail a paradoxalement renforcé les liens entre les différents sites de l’institution, entre Lausanne, Zurich et Penthaz, réunissant sur (ou plutôt dans) un même écran ces collaborateurs éloignés habituellement de plusieurs kilomètres. Libérés de certaines tâches quotidiennes non planifiées et très chronophages, plusieurs collaborateurs ont pu enfin se consacrer pleinement à des missions de catalogage, de développement de bases de données, la création de nouveaux outils de gestion et autres projets transversaux. Bref : cet éloignement forcé a eu, aussi, des résultats positifs.

Depuis le 11 mai, après 8 semaines de semi-confinement, nous avons repris très doucement nos activités dans nos différents locaux en veillant à protéger ses utilisateurs. Les salles de projections restent fermées jusqu’en août, mais nous acceptons la visite de quelques chercheurs, sur rendez-vous, et les archives sont mises en quarantaine après consultation. Les couloirs des bâtiments sont décorés de panneaux qui rappellent les règles d’hygiène et de distanciation (deux mètres !) promulguées par le gouvernement. Certains bureaux ont été partiellement réaménagés, des distributeurs de gels hydro-alcooliques installés dans l’ensemble des espaces. Des masques et des gants sont mis à disposition des collaborateurs mais aussi des visiteurs qui doivent laisser leurs coordonnées à des fins de traçabilité. Un tournus du personnel a été mis en place, pour éviter les surcharges de présence. Les nettoyages et désinfections ont été renforcés. Le télétravail est toujours fortement recommandé pour ceux qui peuvent se passer de travailler au bureau ou les personnes à risque. Et des courriels réguliers de la direction sont envoyés aux employés afin de les informer de l’évolution de la situation et des nouvelles consignes, ceci afin de les rassurer et d’instaurer un climat de travail le plus serein possible.

Mais il reste que si une partie de nos activités peuvent en effet, aujourd’hui, se faire à distance, dès que l’on revient à nos collections, il faut bien que le contact revienne. Toucher la pellicule, les affiches, les photos, les livres, les dossiers d’archives, toute cela fait partie de la base de notre métier. Et si l’on veut montrer tout cela au public par la grâce du numérique, il faut bien d’abord les numériser… Et ça, c’est un travail éminemment manuel. Voilà pourquoi nous cherchons aujourd’hui un chemin pour que cette partie de notre activité, profondément indispensable, continue du mieux possible, et en toute sécurité, malgré ce coronavirus qui dicte nos nouveaux comportements. Comme le disait notre Ministre de la Santé (qui est aussi notre Ministre de la Culture) : «Aussi vite que possible mais aussi lentement que nécessaire».

Enfin, et nous le savons tous, les effets de cette crise risquent de se faire sentir sur le long terme : la crise économique que ce virus a provoqué pourrait imposer partout des restrictions budgétaires importantes. Comme souvent, la culture, et les archives de la culture, qui ont toujours survécu à tout, risquent bien d’en faire les frais. Peut-être que la bataille que nous devons livrer n’est pas derrière nous, mais devant nous. A suivre.

Photo: © Samuel Rubio / Cinémathèque suisse

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‘Lockdown Light’

On March 13, the Swiss government announced that the country would be under semi-lockdown starting on March 16. Under the so-called ‘lockdown light’, the Swiss were never required to stay home, and those who had to work could continue to go into the workplace (some of us did so, albeit with considerable restraint). Teleworking was strongly encouraged, and schools were closed, as were shops, restaurants, theatres and cinemas. Everyone had to connect via internet and videoconferencing.
All of us, out of necessity, had to learn to do things differently. And it turns out that what we thought would be difficult at first ended up working out quite well, especially our unprecedented use of digital resources. This was obviously not true for all our colleagues across the world, and I know that for many, unfortunately, this crisis was – and is – catastrophic.
But I have to admit that we at Cinémathèque suisse were able to get through the most critical period without too much hardship. Perhaps because the Swiss are pathologically obsessed with disaster preparedness. After all, during the two world wars that marked the 20th century, somewhat extreme military defence plans meant that the population was in a constant state of readiness (although we were ultimately spared). And I think we are one of the only countries in the world, along with Sweden, that, since the early 1960s, has required nuclear fallout shelters in every new home or building. Today we have more than 300,000 such bunkers, theoretically capable of sheltering 110% of the Swiss population. Of course, these days, they are also great places for bands to rehearse, many are used as wine cellars or for storage, and some have been converted into rather grim shelters for refugees and homeless people.

It’s true that during the semi-lockdown, the Swiss authorities issued recommendations rather than orders (again, quite typically Swiss) and allowed companies and institutions to continue working while following the guidance on distancing to the best of their ability. As a result, we were able to keep our premises open to just a few staff members, but enough to ensure the security of the collections, the smooth running of administrative processes, and the receipt and dispatch of parcels. This also made it easier to set up and coordinate our digital activities.
Thanks to the efforts of the IT experts, the employees of Cinémathèque suisse quickly obtained secure VPN access to the databases and files on the computers at the office, subscriptions for videoconferencing services, and even special access for digital ingest and remote restoration.
For the public, we opened two digital platforms on Vimeo, one offering free of charge a restored classic film per week, and the other proposing rare short films from the collection, also restored. In addition, we were very active on social media, providing ‘Seventh Art and lockdown’ quizzes on Instagram, tributes to deceased personalities on Twitter and posters of our collections on Facebook.
This incredible vitality has, in some cases, improved working relationships. As our colleague from Madrid, Josetxo Cerdán, points out in his text, teleworking has paradoxically strengthened the ties between the different sites of the institution, between Lausanne, Zurich and Penthaz, bringing together on (or rather in) the same screen colleagues who are usually many kilometres apart. With time freed up from the random and time-consuming tasks that arise day-to-day, several employees were finally able to devote themselves fully to cataloguing, database development, the creation of new management tools and other cross-functional projects. In short, this forced distancing also had positive results.

Since May 11, after eight weeks of semi-lockdown, we have very slowly begun resuming our activities at our various sites, taking care to protect their users. The screening rooms will remain closed until August, but we are accepting visits from a few researchers by appointment, and the archives are quarantined after being viewed. The hallways in the buildings are decorated with signs reminding us of the infection control and distancing guidelines (two meters!) recommended by the government. Some offices have been partially rearranged, with hand sanitiser dispensers installed in all the rooms. Masks and gloves are provided for employees as well as for visitors, who must leave their contact details for tracing purposes. A staff rotation system has been set up so there are never too many people present at the same time. Cleaning and disinfection procedures have been ramped up. Telework is still strongly recommended for anyone who doesn’t need to come to the office as well as for people at risk. And management sends regular e-mail updates to employees to keep them informed of developments and new guidelines, so they feel safe to come to work.
But the fact remains that although some of our activities can be done remotely, when it comes to our collections, physical contact is essential. Touching the film, the posters, the photos, the books and the archives is a fundamental component of our business. And if we want to show all this to the public using digital technology, we have to digitise them first, and that has to be done by hand. This is why we are now looking for a way to ensure that this part of our activity, which is deeply essential, can continue safely, despite the coronavirus that is dictating the rules these days. As our Minister of Health (who is also our Minister of Culture) has said: “As quickly as possible, but as slowly as necessary”.

Finally, as we all know, the effects of this crisis are likely to be felt over the long term. In light of the economic crisis caused by the virus, major budget restrictions may be imposed across the board, and as is often the case, culture, and cultural archives, which have managed to survive every peril, are in danger of suffering the consequences. It may be that the battle we have to fight is not behind but ahead of us. Stay tuned.

Photo: © Samuel Rubio / Cinémathèque suisse

The appetite for Britain’s cultural screen heritage is huge. Although we cannot currently work on our major programmes requiring direct use of collections or equipment, we are focusing as much as possible on access, from online cultural programming to footage sales using digitised collections. Viewings of free archival material on BFI Player have recently increased fourfold. We have become rapid response collectors, preserving the online videos that best illustrate our experiences – from Boris Johnson and his phone-filmed ‘mild symptoms’, to Joe Wicks and his daily exercise regime – in the UK-wide campaign #BritainOnLockdown.

Although overall income generation has fallen dramatically, as our cinemas, restaurants, and corporate hire facilities are all closed. However our footage sales and access department has had a large upswing in requests. With so little film and television being newly produced there has been a big rise in the desire to make archivally based programmes. Some usual clients have reduced their request rates, but new ones have arrived.

Looking more widely across the UK, archives are part of a mixed ecology: some are part of HE institutions, libraries or local authorities, or are independent trusts. The pandemic spotlights the screen heritage sector’s financial fragility. In the short term, independent film archives are being worst hit, as they depend the most on self-generated income. The concern is they may not survive without rapid financial assistance. The pandemic may in time affect university-based regional film archives, too, especially if student intake is drastically down this autumn. Worldwide, the cultural/independent exhibition sector is similarly fragile. Transporting film around the world, sitting in close proximity in cinemas – it is all at risk. Watching on iPads at home is fine for some things, but Lawrence of Arabia or 2001? Please, no! We desperately need cinemas and festivals focused on the arts and cultural heritage to survive, and preserve audiences as well as collections.

The BFI National Archive’s first-stage strategy for phased emerging from lockdown is to prioritise key parts of on-site work underpinning important activities. But first we are carrying out full H&S site evaluations and changes in accordance with the recent UK government guidance for working safely during Covid-19. We want to restart our programmes covering preservation and access, and support our external film archive partners and specialist technical suppliers. We need to carry on with the BFI’s public programme (albeit modified) including material from the BFI National Archive, both online and when BFI Southbank reopens. We are also looking into how to provide public access again to our cultural heritage material with proper social distancing and hygiene requirements via BFI Southbank’s cinemas, library, and mediatheque. It’s going to be really challenging, without a doubt. Nevertheless we are determined to carry on!

We’ve begun creating online resources using the video files of preserved films that we had on hand, beginning with a film that was meant to screen for a major anniversary on May 1, 2020. We had planned a screening that day to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Mayday demonstrations in New Haven, with some of the filmmakers behind the 1970 documentary MAYDAY, where we would have premiered our 16mm preservation of the film. Since that screening was cancelled, we decided, with the support of the filmmakers, to open up access to a transfer of the preserved film on Vimeo, marking the first time we’ve shared any of our film preservation work online. Alongside this release, I conducted a Zoom interview with the two filmmakers originally slated to appear in person, who were joined, thanks to the online nature of the conversation, by other collaborators from around the country who wouldn’t have been able to make the screening in person. We released an edited version of this conversation alongside the film on May 1.

In the subsequent weeks, I’ve conducted an interview with another filmmaker, Frank Mouris, and we’ve shared a group of his films, which we preserved in 2016, accompanied by our conversation. A third preserved film, THE BEGINNINGS OF BEBOP (1981), has followed, accompanied by an interview with the filmmaker, Willie Ruff. We plan to try to do as many more of these film and interview releases as we have preserved films to share. 

We’ve also begun a second initiative to connect our collection with our audience in the absence of our “Treasures from the Yale Film Archive” public screening series, something we’re calling “Treasure Talks.” I’m speaking with Yale alumni in the world of film via Zoom, during which they talk about a film in our collection that means something to them. We also talk about their experience of film during their time at the university and what films they’ve been watching over the last few weeks. Both of these projects have meant that much of the time away from the office has been spent in a self-taught, crash course in video editing.

This was meant to be a big summer for the organization, as construction and renovation was slated to begin in the last week of March on our new offices, with a move planned for August. That’s obviously on hold for now, but we’ve been told it will likely start up again this summer, with a move sometime in the 2020-21 academic year. One bit of silver lining from being forced to find other ways to connect with audiences is that the FSC will likely have a more robust online presence than before this closure, and will have more experience in connecting with audiences in ways that go beyond on-site film screenings.

Le Lichtspiel conserve plus de 25'000 films dans ses archives, propose un service de restauration et de numérisation de films de tous formats et entretient une immense collection de matériel technique cinématographique qu’elle présente dans son musée. La salle de cinéma se trouve au milieu de cette vaste collection.

De nombreuses personnes entrent et sortent, demandent des conseils, déposent du matériel et discutent des projets avec nous. En plus de nos employés un grand nombre de tout âge – des stagiaires, des civilistes, des volontaires, des personnes à la retraite nous soutiennent régulièrement par leur expérience et leur travail, restaurent des appareils, visionnent des films et participent dans tous les domaines. Le Lichtspiel est donc un lieu qui vit du contact avec les gens et avec le matériel.

Plusieurs activités et domaines ont dû être interrompus à cause du lockdown, nous sommes forcés de nous limiter à un petit cercle de personnes sur place, engagés surtout dans le domaine de la numérisation et des archives, les autres travaillent – si possible - en home office.

Cependant, nous avons décidé dès le début de poursuivre notre rôle en tant qu’institution publique et de rester en contact et en échange avec nos amis et avec un public plus large. Nous avons donc continué de présenter notre programme hebdomadaire, le Dimanche du Lichtspiel: depuis la fondation du Lichtspiel nous proposons des programmes thématiques de nos propres archives. Il s’agit de films présentés sur des projecteurs anciens, commentés personnellement. Les spectateurs ont la possibilité de découvrir des œuvres rares, reçoivent des informations sur l’histoire, le contexte original de projection et les caractéristiques matérielles des films. La combinaison variée de ces programmes d'archives rassemble des bandes annonces et des publicités, des documentaires et des actualités, des films expérimentaux, musicaux et fragmentaires et permet au public de faire des voyages cinématographiques surprenants et uniques à travers le temps. L'année dernière, nous avons pu célébrer le millième Dimanche du Lichtspiel. Cette tradition n'a jamais été suspendue - même pas pendant la pandémie de Corona.

Depuis le 22 mars, nous proposons un streaming en direct du Lichtspiel le dimanche soir à 20 heures (vimeo.com/lichtspiel). Comme d'habitude, nous présentons le programme et donnons des informations sur les films projetés, ensuite, l'écran descend, les projecteurs 35mm, 16mm et Super8 se mettent en marche et le public peut assister à une projection filmée. Pendant la pause, la caméra se promène dans l'exposition et des pièces individuelles de notre collection sont mises en valeur.

Les sujets des programmes étaient presque aussi hétérogènes que le public qui nous joigne de plus en plus nombreux. Nous avons présenté des soirées sur l’apparition de fantômes, sur des produits laitiers, sur l’humour, nous avons dédié un programme au lapin de pâques, aux contes de fées et aux coupes de coiffure ou aux gares. La palette ne pourrait pas être plus surprenante, ce qui correspond tout à fait à l’idée: le public attend avec impatience dimanche soir, 20 heures, pour pouvoir nous joindre et se sentir présent au Lichtspiel pendant quelques heures.

A propos: Chaque programme est suivi par une devinette sur le cinéma proposé par l’artiste farfelu Babu Wälti: Dans un travail parfois spectaculairement minuscule, il nous emporte dans un monde mythique, dans des décors amusants, parfois bizarres, improvisés dans sa cave. Chaque semaine il crée un nouvel quiz ludique et nous ravit à travers des angles imprévus, éclairants, dérangeants et divertissants. Et remet un prix au gagnant.

Cette forme de cinéma, peut-elle être un substitut pour des rencontres personnelles sur place? Bien sûr que non. Pour nous, le lieu du cinéma sera toujours la salle de projection.

Nous apprécions discuter avec les spectateurs, les rencontrer au comptoir du bar, entendre des éclats de rire et des soupirs dans l’obscurité de la salle. Dans les temps présents, le streaming nous permet de rester en contact avec notre public, qui nous a envoyé beaucoup de feedbacks magnifiques par des lettres, des courriers électroniques et par téléphone, les gens nous encouragent de maintenir la tradition du programme du dimanche au Lichtspiel et de poursuivre notre mission: de faire revivre le cinéma avec des moyens inattendus, aventureux et non conventionnels.

Nous attendons avec impatience le moment où nous pourrons rouvrir notre salle au public, et nous attendons avec impatience le prochain dimanche ou notre programme sera diffusé depuis le cinéma du Lichtspiel.

Nous vous souhaitons à tous une bonne santé et beaucoup de force en cette étrange période.

We are facing disaster and I must confess that we had hardly worked in the communication before the pandemic situation assaulted us. Fortunately, our film collections are not suffering in the vaults during this crisis. We had some problems with the ventilation system during the first weeks, but everything is working again. Looking back now, what comes to my mind is how little we were aware of what was going on only a few days before the Spanish Government declaration of Alarm State. On March 2 and 3 we had organized in Madrid a meeting of Iberian (Portuguese and Spanish) film archives and we had also invited to participate in it some other friends, like Paolo Cherchi Usai, Giovanna Fossati or Fiaf’s President Frédéric Maire. I remember receiving Paolo at his hotel, with our Head of Programming, Carlos Reviriego, or talking to Giovanna in the lobby of our Cine Doré. Everything was quite normal. Of course, we talked about the CV, more with Paolo, who had flown from Italy, where the crisis was already in full force, but it looked like something far away, affecting others. Even when Frédéric received a call announcing the mandatory cancelation of a film festival that was to take place in the following days in the Cinémathèque Suisse I was not sufficiently alarmed… One week later I had to improvise, in 48 hours, the closing of our facilities (not just the cinema, but the archive and the library too) and send all of Filmoteca’s workers home. Paradox number one: the disaster was in our agenda, but we had a crisis before our eyes, we were about to face disaster, and we couldn’t see it (at least I couldn’t).

More than two months later I must admit that it has been hard to organize the situation, and that we still have a lot of issues to sort out. The coming weeks will be key to reconstruct the coming back: first the reopening of the buildings and the return of the workers, and then the access of the citizens and companies to our services. A new challenge. Probably it is going to be a different situation from the current one, but I must say we have learnt a lot during these sixty days of isolation, and we should be able to transfer all that new knowledge to the postCV normality, even during these coming days of gradual come back. Yes, it is not easy to say it, but the crisis has opened up new opportunities, and we should be able to incorporate them to our future workflows. Away from our daily routines and emergencies, we have necessarily had to look at our work environment in a different way and by doing so we have seen things that we could not appreciate previously (e.g. we have had time to watch with more detail the films being scanned according to our protocols and we have found some unexpected surprises; or we have been forced to take some time to reflect on our old fashioned website). But what is more important, being forced to change our workflow, we are thinking out of the box and have discovered new, enriching, ways of collaboration between different departments. Filmoteca Española has one hundred workers in three different buildings. During Zoom or Skype meetings some of them have started to work together for the first time. In some cases, they had never meet before: facing disaster we have also had to face one another. 

 When I arrived to Filmoteca Española, 18 months ago, it was obvious that one of the most pressing needs of the institution was to convince its workers to believe in themselves and in their possibilities to being part of a new team. What was completely out of my mind, and here comes paradox number two, was that we would need a pandemic and a physical separation situation to complete the process of making us a better team and to regenerate the workflows in a way that I never imagined before. I hope we all learn these lessons for the near future, obviously we can’t forget that harder times are coming.

Thanks to the corona-related extra time spent at home, having more time than ever to think and look back, I dared to open my private “vault” at home – the place where I keep all my books, papers, pictures, and memories. The hard drive I can trust. I knew that there were some papers calling loudly for attention. And of course, I had forgotten of those silent ones.

Some are funny, some are more interesting than expected - like the first days and weeks at then-Czechoslovak Film Institute at the end of 1989, some still readable faxes, documentation of the process of establishing the new film legislation in Czechoslovakia in early 1990, valuable stills, wasteful personal papers, clippings and documents related to my favorite filmmakers, and also to the film education, particularly at FAMU. We all have those – and I think it is fair to entrust them to hands of professionals. We often speak to film people or their heirs that our institutions are the right places to donate their papers so we should not forget about our own ones. And to trust the professionals we trust.

It is double gratifying that I can and want to give all those documents to my own institutions: I have no professional secrets, I don´t have to fight with neither more or less hidden fetishism nor fear that someone would learn anything prematurely – and I trust my colleagues that they will not keep any futilities. I enjoy this soothing awareness that they will take care of them, select, organize, catalogue, and make accessible and I wont have to make any of those decisions myself.

When I walked last time through the vaults of film-related part of our collection, a colleague of mine pointed me out to the orderly laid archival non-acidic paper boxes with my name on them. That was the first batch from eight years ago. I didn´t feel particularly related to it any longer. A liberating view.

My particular problem is there is a healthy interest in archive film to production companies – its doesn’t need a film crew after all. But the staff I have sent home my technicians. I’m old school I know my way around the celluloid restoring old movies so they will run through the machine, the Steenbeck is my work station. But then, oh god, they become “files” infernal digital computer based, unseen, intangible, with zero physicality – you just kind of have to trust the image is there !

Problem two – broadband, I based out in the sticks, I’m watching the upload slider creep along the bar in almost unbearable slowness. Production Managers cry “where’s my clips of Tutankhamun’s discovery, 1970’s Peru, car production in France, Tin Pan Alley, Charles De Gaulle, Tibet 1950’s, Spanish Flu 1918 (no surprise at that one )”…and I carry on eyes glued to that upload slider.

In normal times, I really didn’t have to worry about the tech side of my job, my wonderful team were here in my archive, relieving me of the burden of this modern aspect of my traditional job. But now they are at home and I’m in the office and my new digital skills inch forward with the help of tense telephone calls and they patiently work me though, step by step. I do so love working amid the rusty film cans of my day to day and I do so loathe having to worry about digital movies, I know its now whats required but.... So that’s my life for the foreseeable…heyho, I do still appreciate how blessed I am in horrible times.

Amanda Huntley

huntleyarchives.com

Although living in a country not officially in lock-down, we have since been urged to work from home as much as possible; which is easier for some of us, more difficult for others. All public activities have ceased; the cinema and the library are closed. Cinemateket is streaming one Swedish classic every week, and the traffic to the on-line collections Filmarkivet.se has increased with 60%. The digital archive is still receiving contractual deposits, and can do a lot of work remotely. Equipment for sound digitization has been sent to the homes of the technicians, who are also equipped to do some restoration work there, and flat-bed scanners and stills were also sent to the staff’s homes for them to continue to carry out work. Moving image digitization, colour correction and restoration is done at reduced capacity, having the team divided into sub-teams alternating to come in to work, whereas the photochemical lab is pretty much on hold. Maintenance of the building can still be carried out, so the monitoring of temperature and humidity in the vaults are still being done. Some 170 prints were out of the collections when cancellations of screenings and events started to flood in; most of the prints could be returned, and in other cases colleague FIAF archives gracefully accepted to house our elements in their vaults until further notice.

The unexpected restrictions have meant there has been time to carry out research as to the best practice in storage, handling, safety measures, monitoring loans etc, and most of the team working with the analogue collections are now busy making charts to map the situation and come up with suggestions in areas where there is room for improvement. Personally, I’ve also been writing catalogue entries for programmes and festivals which may not take place, but at least it keeps some of the more desperate thoughts at bay, and gives some sort of continuation of normality and meaning, and aspirations that things will once get back to normal.

But yes, there has been a lot of time also to think and reflect. What will be the financial implications of the crisis, and the long-term consequences, in terms of activities and staffing? And what about cinema in general? The industry in Sweden is small, and thus frail. Producers, distributors and exhibitors are now under tremendous pressure, and although some of the government-allocated corona-funds for culture will be used for this end, it will surely not be enough. The situation is especially hard for art-house distributors and cinemas, for whom every single ticket sold makes a significant difference. When all this is over, how many of them will be able to get back to business? What impact will this have on the diversity of film culture? If only mainstream film culture will survive, we will all be so much poorer. And what about all free-lancers, musicians, writers etc, who live off performances which are now being inhibited?

In this moment, I realise I’m very fortunate to have a position at a publicly funded institution in a rich country, and know that the situation is very different in other institutions, in other parts of the world. What will the implications for our global community be? What will the situation be when we come back to some sort of normality? Some of the changes in the way we communicate and conduct our work over the past months – including giving access to collections – will remain, I suppose. The crisis has shown that culture is more important and relevant than ever. But the need for collective experiences are still there, and the day we can once again gather in theatres, concert halls, libraries, museums and cinemas can’t come soon enough. Let’s just hope that there will still be structures there to meet this need.

One thing is for sure – the next festival, meeting or congress when we can meet again to discuss and talk in person, and to give each other a big hug, will be a moment to remember.

As a community, archivists all over the world are facing similar conundrums, are pondering similar questions and dilemmas and are struggling with the same issues of economic uncertainty, technical difficulties, and personal anxieties. But there are also some differences in the way we can respond to present and future challenges.

To those archives for whom exceptional situations are the rule, dealing with COVID-19 has been somewhat familiar and completely different at the same time. On the one hand, we have the flexibility to adapt to trying times, we know how to work when financial resources are non-existent and we handle uncertainty reasonably well. But on the other hand, our collections are not prepared to be left alone for so many days, precarious climate-control equipment tends to break or malfunction when not attended and heavy rain or power shutdowns are a daily threat. 

Strict quarantine caught us unprepared: we were left out of our exhibition space and vaults from one day to the other. As the director of the Museo del Cine, I am the only staff allowed to circulate and check on the collections. I became administrator, conservator, responsible for maintenance and cleanliness, coordinator of communications, and more. With the help of only one security guard, I make the rounds twice a week and make sure the air conditioning is working (to at least maintain our inadequate 17°Celsius temperature), sweep the roof to prevent dry leaves to block the drainage of our nitrate vault (it is autumn in Argentina right now), check on our paper, textile and photo collections and library to make sure humidity is kept at bay (we decided not to keep the air conditioning running these days) and finally I walk around the permanent and temporary exhibitions to see if everything is OK (things tend to fall or move around in the cases or frames). It is a sad spectacle to see empty spaces where so much activity used to happen. 

The pressing need to be able to share and give access to our collections has allowed us to get creative and improve our online pool of resources  (check our wonderful www.nitratoargentino.org starting Thursday 6th) but connectivity issues and lack of adequate equipment hinder our capabilities. The scarcity of digitized images, intellectual property unresolved issues, and the need to respond to the communication needs of our ministry of culture who decides on what content we can share is constraining our possibilities of making our collections available to a general audience. With the help of a very active communication team of two and the contributions of all curators and conservators, we are trying to share as much content as possible and also keep up with what is expected from us as a public institution. 

Working from home has also proved to be a challenge as not everybody has been able to contribute or participate equally. There are a few people who don't have computers at home, others only have one computer that is mostly used for school work for the children in the family, and there are yet others who are not familiar with online tools. We had to reconfigure roles and teams so that all these situations are accounted for. Assigning remote tasks accordingly and making peace with the idea that not everybody will be able to contribute has also been a challenge for every area coordinator and myself. Part of the staff is working almost normally a few hours a day and others are not. And there is not much we can do about it. But it has also been very gratifying to prove once more that the Museo has a very dedicated staff who are chipping in as much as the can. Some are volunteering to help the elderly stay at home, some are creating content for our Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts (@museodelcineba), others are working on our next big exhibition -whenever that might be (a huge celebration of Maria Luisa Bemberg, one of our great women filmmakers)-and other are advancing their investigation on some of our collections (Antarctica films, Peña Rodríguez -of Metropolis fame- collection, a survey on the images of "desaparecidos" in our newsreel collection, artists films, commercials and trailers collection), preparing educational material or working on our next expanded Museum project with our cameras and projectors collection. And we are optimistic that we are going to be able to celebrate our 50th anniversary next year without facemasks.

Probably the main takeaway of this tough time is - as we already knew- that the human factor is key to all preservation and access work. Underpaid and overenthusiastic staffs all over the world are making sure that moving images  keep reaching their audiences and helping us make sense of this unique shared experience while reminding us that humanity is capable of a lot of goodness and beauty.

Does that mean we have not been impacted by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic at all? Of course not. First sign was that, all of a sudden, we didn’t receive any more post at the office in Brussels. Indexing film journals implies of course access to the source material so I started to contact systematically the publishers who are sending us regularly print copies of their journal. Most of them were very comprehensive and provided us with online access or sent a PDF version of their latest issue(s). That way my colleague Anthony Blampied, who indexes a lot of titles from scratch, was ‘fed’ with new contents at home, from where he works remotely. This said, it seems like the postal services are no longer disrupted but inevitably the publication and mailing of new print issues is now delayed and/or postponed. For instance, the latest issue of FIAF’s Journal of Film Preservation will not be printed and mailed to its subscribers immediately but was published only in electronic format in a first phase. It looks like online access to the journals which we are indexing will become essential, at least in the near future.

The P.I.P. also relies heavily on indexing contributions from all over the world. Some of our contributors are freelancers used to work remotely so they already have online access to their regular titles. But most of our contributors are volunteers working for FIAF affiliates and they found themselves now confined at home without easy access to their titles. When asked how this would affect their indexing work, the huge majority reassured me that they would be able to deliver indexing as usual. It was heartwarming to hear how P.I.P. contributors are highly motivated to index for FIAF, also in exceptional, difficult circumstances.

Of course, the effects of the coronacrisis will become more evident later this year. It can be expected that certain film journals will disappear. In that sense it was not very promising that Film Comment, one of the leading film journals, recently decided to temporarily cease operations and “go in indefinite hiatus”. Even though the future is uncertain, we remain confident that the P.I.P. will be able to cope with all the upcoming challenges.

Rutger Penne

P.I.P. Editor International Index to Film Periodicals

In this situation, any self-respecting film museum in the world must have recognized that its raison d’être actually goes far beyond film curatorship in terms of actively, selectively collecting, preserving, documenting and exhibiting films; far beyond insisting on carefully curated film programs, and on exhibiting films in their original formats.
In this situation, a self-respecting film museum realized that its core mission was always also preservation of the audience. The audience in this context should not be understood as statistics, as an amorphous mass of consumers lead to believe that each one of them is an individual curator of their allegedly unique online viewing habits and additions. Instead, we are talking about preserving the audience as an actual, material group of people, who have gathered to celebrate the critical idea of an actual, material public space, to participate in an act of resistance, a reenactment of the ritual of museum presentation, to reply to the idea of a public film exhibition with a public exhibition of human curiosity and mutual respect.
Only through preservation of an idea of a film museum as a public space, can a film museum in turn preserve the idea of an audience as an active entity, and consequently preserve the freedom to experience cinema one way or the other.
Jean-Paul Sartre famously defined freedom as nothing but the existence of our will, and added that it is actually not enough to will, but necessary to will to will. It would probably not be too much of a stretch to imagine this Sartrean gap between “will” and “will to will” as a perfect illustration of a gap between a semi-conscious “click to watch next” and a deliberate trip to your local cinematheque. If your local cinematheque – that is, freedom – will still be there after the crisis.