Part of the IFI Irish Film Archive’s mission is to make the collections we preserve available to those who want to be educated and entertained by them. After all, what’s the point in cataloguing and preserving thousands of films that no one gets to see?
We share our collections in a number of ways: through cinema exhibition nationally and internationally, by making it available to researchers and educators, through footage use by audiovisual producers and via our free global virtual viewing room.
However, giving access to the material we hold isn’t always as straightforward as you might think.
In this digital age audiences expect to be able to access moving image content at the click of a mouse - but there are a number of obstacles in getting moving images from the vaults to the (big or small) screen, and they can be categorized under two headings: condition and copyright.
Digitization is often necessary in order to make material available, however, this process can be complex given the physical condition and diversity of formats the IFI Archive holds. Not every item can withstand the digitization process, rendering some titles unavailable.
While it is possible to conserve fragile material, it is an expensive endeavour and given resource constraints the IFI Archive must prioritize which materials undergo this process. In recent years, funding from Coimisiún na Mean and Screen Ireland has assisted with a number of large scale restoration initiatives and newly digitized material is regularly uploaded to the IFI Archive Player.
Intellectual property rights can also restrict access. Irish copyright is prescriptive, lasting 70 years after the death of the author, leaving very little film material in the public domain.
While some material can be made available for educational and research purposes without copyright clearance, any commercial use must be cleared before release. While this can leave programme makers frustrated if they can’t clear a piece of footage we hold, its essential we don’t damage the faith placed in us by those who have entrusted material to our care.
Similarly, programme makers can be frustrated by the fees we need to charge for any commercial use of our collections, but as an organization that only receives 25 percent of our funding from the state this income helps pay for crucial staff, equipment and specialist storage. Rights holders also receive half of the commercial fees we charge, compensating them for the use of their intellectual property and encouraging them to allow their material to be used in new ways.
We recognize that emerging filmmakers might find the process of clearing rights intimidating and commercial fees unaffordable so we are part of an award winning access project called Make Film History. Led by Kingston School of Art , London and University College Cork the project preclears selected titles from the archives of IFI, NI Screen, BBC and BFI and makes them available to emerging filmmakers for reuse in new works.
The project has been a great success teaching a new generation of filmmakers about rights clearance process, the value of archival footage and affording them the opportunity to explore creative ways in which it can be used.
Make Film History is still accepting participants, and details on how to become part of the project can be found here.
Take a deeper dive into the IFI Archive Player here.
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