Film heritage: collection and preservation, competitiveness of related industrial activities

The European Parliament and Council adopted a Recommendation on film heritage and the competitiveness of related industrial activities (Film Heritage Recommendation) on 16 November 2005. This third report on the Film Heritage Recommendation analyses the reports received from Member States in reply to a Commission questionnaire circulated in July 2011.

The report points out that the change in the film industry, which has evolved into a fully digital industry from production to screen, has enormous consequences on the collection, preservation, restoration and access to film heritage. The report’s main findings are as follows:

• Member States should encourage rights holders to digitise and exploit on-line or through digital projection the master pieces of their catalogues; the dialogue between right-holders, on-line platforms and FHI should be supported in order to facilitate commercial exploitation of heritage master pieces.
• Regarding Film Heritage Institutions (FHIs), new investment and organisational changes are required in order to fully exploit the opportunities of the digital era for film heritage, as well as to ensure that the digital film heritage will be collected and preserved.
• All Member States have legal or contractual deposit systems for the collection of film heritage, but the enforcement of these mechanisms needs to be improved in many cases.
• FHIs need to update their collection policy to deal with digital films and to take on the task of preservation of digital film.
• With regard to the interoperability of film databases, the application of the 2009 and 2010 European standards should be extended.
• Preservation of digital film is a new task for FHIs and the preservation of analogue film needs to be continued and improved.
• FHI and rights holders should continue to explore and expand online access to collections, in order to meet the cultural and educational demand.