Bringing archive alive!
A new initiative with an exciting 'French connection' to bring films of the last century in line with the digital age to be enjoyed by a wider audience on a variety of media platforms.
The Digital Heritage project has been developed within the European cross-border co-operation programme,
INTERREG IV A "France (Channel)-England, co-financed by the ERDF.
Screen East is partnering two major film archives on either side of the channel - the East Anglian Film Archive in Norwich and Rouen's Pole Image Haute-Normandie as part of their Interreg Channel programme.
Digitisation of archive film
The Digital Heritage project will ensure the digitization of archival film making the film of the last century more available to a wider audience on line via different networks and media platforms and for use in the digital screening of documentary film editions based on historical themes.
Archive on Screen
The Digital Heritage Project will be bringing archive alive on a variety of digital media screens throughout east anglia and upper Normandy – in public venues, shopping centres, at film festivals, regional rural cinemas, outdoor events, Stately Screenings aswell as exploring new ways of showcasing films via mobile phone downloads to act as a new ‘moving image postcard’. Take a look at the following clips from our edits ....
‘PASTURES OLDE'
Enduring images of agriculture and farming in East Anglia are brought together in a classic collection of amateur and professional films from 1920’s to the 60’s. These unique films chart the changes from horse to machine power to cultivate the land. Witness life on the farms throughout the region through the changing seasons in a farmworker’s year - from ploughing and planting to the highlight in the rural calendar – harvest time
'FISH & CLIPS'
The rivers, estuaries and coastal waters of East Anglia and northern France once provided a good living for local fishermen and sailors. For the crews of the herring fleets of Yarmouth and the cod ships leaving the harbour at Fécamp it took skill and courage to bring the harvest home. This collection of amateur and professional archive films from the twenties to the sixties is the story of our busy harbours and tranquil waterways.
"BON APPETIT"
A veritable archive feast! - ‘Bon Appétit’ is an appetising menu of amateur and professional archive films all about food from the past. This collation is drawn from Upper Normandy and the East of England. On the menu, French bread and traditional butter, Cambridgeshire jam Neufchatel cheese, oysters , cockles and other shellfish, eels from the fens and essex coast - all washed down with Suffolk beer or refreshing Normandy cider – delicious viewing!.
An important part of our social history
Amongst the archives of Pole Image and the East Anglia Film Archive are amateur film collections which span decades of the last century and illustrate priceless, unique moments in the lives of east anglians and normans showing how they lived, loved, learnt, worked and relaxed and what their communities and cities were like then. They are a treasure trove of times gone by captured on film by east anglians and Normans.
These films form part of our heritage and it is important for us to find ways to use the advancement of digital technology and ensure that the films are not confined to the
depths of the archive vaults. By showcasing these and other commercial and regional television collections we will compare and contrast our regions’ histories and bring alive our filmic heritage to educate and entertain.
Inspired originally by the twinned cities of Norwich and Rouen in Upper Normandy, Screen east are working together with a french screen agency ‘Pole Image haute-normandie’, based in Rouen. Their own in-house collection of amateur archive films is another treasure trove of times gone by captured on film by the people of Upper Normandy –the Seine Maritime and Eure departments – from the white cliffs of the Cote D’Albatre between Etretat and Le Treport down to the picturesque rural environs of Breteuil.
In East Anglia the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire are well represented by films of the last century housed in the East Anglian Film Archive and the Digital Hertiage Project cross channel regions provide a rich tapestry of heritage, history and culture on which to build a range of new services and new media products for the 21st century community and visitor as well as popular screenings and participation at festivals and cinemas.