Media Release: NFSA and PNG NFI’s Co-Designed Project digitises and preserves at-risk culturally significant materials

Published Monday 3 November 

A four-year co-designed project by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia and the National Film Institute (NFI) of Papua New Guinea has worked to digitise, preserve and safely store the NFI film archive and to facilitate access to culturally significant PNG material in the NFSA’s own collection. The project, supported by the International Cultural Diplomacy Arts Fund (ICDAF), has focused on the conservation, treatment and digitisation of high-priority, at-risk films about PNG and by PNG filmmakers.

The NFI’s significant collection of cultural, historical and political documentary films includes Tukana - Husat i asua (Who’s To Blame) (Chris Owen and Albert Toro, 1982) considered to be one of PNG’s greatest feature films. The NFSA’s Restores program, which digitises and preserves classic films so they can be seen in today’s digital cinemas, has restored the film this year as a gift to the NFI in the year PNG celebrates fifty years of independence. Owen co-directed Tukana with Toro, who was widely considered to be the father of PNG film, and the restored version will be screened at same-day events in Port Moresby and Canberra on 4 November.

Other significant documentaries digitised and preserved include Rabaul: The Past Remains (Richard Tucker, 1968); Axes and Aré: Stone Tools of the Duna (J Peter White, 1973); Ileksen: Politics for Papua New Guinea (Gary Kildea, 1977); Sepik River (1977; and Gogodala: A Cultural Revival? (Chris Owen, 1983). 

In addition, the NFSA has designed, built and transported a Remote Onsite Digital Access (RODA) system so the NFI can access and share its newly digitised films from its headquarters in Goroka, in the Eastern Highlands of PNG. RODA includes digital storage, high-end screens, film post-production equipment including grading and editing software and tools, and oral history recording equipment.

The NFSA has also provided training and resources to staff at the NFI relating to audiovisual conservation, preservation, digitisation, archiving and digital access, with a commitment to creating professional skills expansion and continued opportunities. 

‘Digitisation, access and preservation are crucial issues for archives all over the world,’ said Meagan Loader, the NFSA’s Chief Curator. ‘Working with the NFI on this co-designed project has established protocols and pathways that will protect the PNG national audiovisual collection.’

‘The collaboration with the NFSA in Australia provided the practical support to enable the NFI to preserve and digitise our films,’ said Zoe Baru, the NFI’s Film Archivist. ‘The collection is now accessible to us and to the PNG public today and for generations to come.’

Images and vision available here on Dropbox.
Read more about this story on the NFSA website here.

Notes:

Tukana was digitally restored by the NFSA in partnership with Spectrum Films. The restoration began with in-house conservation and 2K scanning of the first generation 16mm colour negative, before being digitally cleaned and restored at Spectrum Films in consultation with Zoe Baru, an NFI film archivist. The NSFA’s Audio Services team restored the audio from the 16mm mono final mag film.

Media enquiries and interview requests:

Louise Alley | Communications Manager | 0422 348 652 | louise.alley@nfsa.gov.au