FIAF CONGRESS IN LJUBLJANA, 7-12 JUNE 2005

The 61th Congress of Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film (FIAF) took place in Cankarjev Dom, Ljubljana, 5-11 June, 2005. I arrived by the evening of Tuesday, 7 June after an all day journey and returned home in Helsinki in the first hour of Monday, 13 June. I was there as the deputy head of the Commission for Programming and Access to Collections, chairman of the Electronic Subtitling Workshop, and speaker in the Technical Commission Workshop on the digital future from the programming and access viewpoint.

A highlight of the Congress was the launching of Torkell Saetervadet's Advanced Projection Manual, circulating as a fully set model copy, to be published soon as a book.

The digital future, and our profession's existential question "what is film" were discussed in the technical commission's workshop. Mr. Saetervadet analysed some reasons why we still desire film projection:

1. The resolution is generally higher
2. The contrast ratio is better
3. Absolute black levels
4. Better rendering of detail in dark areas
5. Better colour reproduction (colour gamut, colour resolution)
6. No compression artefacts
7. No pixel artefacts
8. Film remains the most universal standard

In my own speech I continued from Torkell: film is the only standard, as there are no video and digital standards so far, in the strong sense of the word as ISO standards of preservation. The current 2K resolution is not good enough for cinema programming. 4K might be enough; 6-8K for CinemaScope, and 10K for 70mm. But digital rights management (DRM) may cause a stop to higher resolution scanning, as digital files are easy prey to piracy.

Erlend Jonassen (Oslo) presented the ambitious video-on-demand service of the Norwegian Film Institute. The FIAF electronic subtitling network keeps expanding, counting now 20 members.

SECOND CENTURY FORUM
The theme was websites interesting for film professionals.

TECHNICAL SITES
1. American Wide Screen Museum
www.widescreenmuseum.com
2. Film Formats
www.xs4allnt.com
3. Kodak
www.kodak.com
4. Film Preservation Society
www.filmpres.org

CONSERVATION
5. National Film Preservation Foundation
www.filmpreservation.org
6. Conservation online
www.palimpsest.standford.edu

CATALOGING
7. MIC
www.loc.gov
8. IMAP
www.imappreserve.org

RESEARCH
9. BIFI
www.bifi.fr/doc_site/francais/index.html
10. CineFiles
www.mip.berkeley.edu

11. BUFVC
www.bufvc.ac.uk/databases/newsreels
12. Library of Congress
www.loc.gov

FILMOGRAPHIES
13. Film Portal
www.filmportal.de
14. International Movie Database
www.imdb.com

ARCHIVE ACTIVIST GROUPS
15. Archive Forum
www.afiresearch.rmit.edu.au
16. Center for Home Movies
www.homemovieday.com

On Thursday, 9 June, there was a bus excursion to Dolenjska in the south-eastern Slovenia. We visited the Dolenjska Museum in Novo Mesto and the Kapitelj Church with their Tintoretto painting. After a drive through the valley of the river Krka we reached the Cistercian Monastery of Pleterje and visited the Dolenjske Toplice Health Resort.

The farewell dinner on 11 June was served in the Ljubljana Castle, hosted by the Ljubljana mayor, Ms. Danica Simsic.