The China Film Archive (CFA) will hold the 68th International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) Congress in Beijing from April 21 to 29, 2012. More than one hundred delegates are expected to be in attendance, chinesefilms.cn reports.
The FIAF Congress, held 67 times to date, consists of symposia, workshops, open forum discussions, regional meetings, presentation of cinema, restoration projects and, of course, a General Assembly, all over the course of 10 days.
The most essential part of the Congress is the symposia, and the topic of the symposium is decided by the host country and approved by the secretariat.
In 2008, Paris, the topic was "The Archives of Films and Rights Issues"; in 2009, Buenos Aires, "The Cinematheques in Search of Their New Audiences"; in 2010, Oslo, "Digital Challenges and Digital Opportunities in Audiovisual Archiving"; and in 2011, Pretoria, "Indigenous Audiovisual Heritage in Africa and Around the World".
This year, in Beijing, the topic will be "Animation around the World". Around 20 delegates, five from China, will join conversations on the acquisition, preservation and restoration of animation.
For "Animation around the World", the China Film Archive will screen animated films from film archives from across the globe. At present, around 100 classic animated films from 20 different national archives have been registered.
FIAF was founded in Paris on June 17, 1938, with Brussels as its secretariat. There are two kinds of members in FIAF, full and associate members. It is comprised of 153 members (84 full members and 70 associate) from 78 different countries. FIAF aims to unite organizations dedicated to collecting and preserving film and encouraging the collection and preservation of documents and materials relating to cinema.
They also promote the creation of archives in countries which lack facilities to preserve film culture. FIAF is an international non-government, non-profit academic institution and the members represent their nation's concerns.
The China Film Archive was given approval from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) to host the event, and the SARFT have noted that this is an important international academic conference.