Last year, upon the initiative of Dr. Theo Mäusli, I was invited to speak at the Save Your Archives panel and present the current situation regarding archives at Suspilne — the public broadcaster of Ukraine. During my presentation, I emphasized that Suspilne holds approximately 70,000 reels of film stored in warehouses across various cities, under constant threat of physical destruction due to ongoing Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure.

At that time, Suspilne had no means to digitize these films and transform them into cultural heritage accessible to the public. Following the conference — again under the leadership of Dr. Mäusli — a fundraising campaign was launched, resulting in the acquisition of a film scanner for Suspilne.

After extensive efforts to purchase and deliver the scanner to Ukraine, it finally arrived in Lviv in June this year, and we have since launched the digitization process.

– Taisiia Turchyn, Head of Archives at Suspilne Media

Currently, we have one scanner engineer, and through the process we realized that this is not sufficient. Preparing and rewinding the films requires significant time and effort. In parallel, another person is working on cataloguing the film reels by conducting a surface inspection of each reel and entering data into a database — including content type, rights status, and other metadata. Priority for digitization is given to those reels where Suspilne holds the rights to the content.

At the same time, Suspilne places great emphasis on promoting archival content and engaging the public. On August 20, a public screening of the digitized film “Misto Drevnie, Misto Molode” (“Ancient City, Young City”) was organized — digitized using the new scanner (Instagram video attached). The event received highly positive feedback and numerous requests to continue such initiatives.
All digitized materials will be published on the website https://mediateka.suspilne.media/, ensuring public access to this valuable content.

A pressing need remains the scaling of the digitization process and training of staff. In this regard, significant support is being provided by INA. In October, the first training visit of Suspilne staff to France took place, marking the beginning of a series of educational initiatives supported by the French Embassy in Ukraine.

Earlier this year, a team from Suspilne also participated in a training program in Japan, hosted by the public broadcaster NHK, where Ukrainian archivists gained valuable knowledge. Cooperation with Japanese partners continues, and very soon a second film scanner — purchased by the Japanese governmental agency JICA — will be put into operation.