On 29 – 30 September last the FIAT/IFTA Regional Latin American Seminar took place online. Scheduled to take place initially in São Paulo in March, the Seminar was postponed due to the outbreak of the corona crisis. “Audiovisual Archives in Latin America: Access, Value and Preservation” was a 2-day event organised by TV Cultura in collaboration with FIAT/IFTA and attended by more than 300 audiovisual archivists from Brazil and the whole ibero-american world, in Portuguese, Spanish and English.

How are TV productions and shows in Brazil and Latin America preserved to maintain a connection with the new generations? How can such a rich historical resource be made available to new audiences to view, study or incorporate into new productions? 25 videos with the full seminar presentations are now freely available via TV Cultura’s Youtube channel.

Subjects tackled include amongst others the situation of Latin American audiovisual archives in a worldwide comparison (B. Declercq), the Ibero-American Network for the Digital Preservation of Sound and Audiovisual Archives RIPDASA (P. Rodriguez), the implementation of artificial intelligence technologies at RTVE in Spain (V. Bazán-Gil) and presentations from several Brazilian broadcast archives.

FIAT/IFTA wants to express feelings of profound gratitude to mrs. Rita Marques, former member of the Executive Council and the driving force behind this Seminar.