National Film, Video and Sound Archives celebrate 40 years

This falls within the celebration of ten years of democracy. The NFVSA was established on 1 April 1964 and Democracy on 27 April 1994. The growth and development of the NFVSA during the first ten years of democracy was tremendous. In the fields of preservation: the upgrading of the NFVSA's holdings building; in client services: our outreach programme that has reached hundreds of thousands South Africans who were unaware of NFVSA's existence until after the advent of democracy. In the international field: NFVSA was granted full membership of Institutions such as the Federation of International Film Archives (FIAF), NFVSA's participation in training and preservation projects in Africa such as the "Save Tanzania's National Film Heritage" project, the hosting of the International Association of Sound and Audio-visual Archives (IASA) conference, the establishing of an African Branch for the Association of Sound and Audio-Visual Archives (AASAVA).

For the celebration of the above events, especially NFVSA's tremendous development after democracy, the NFVSA would do the following to showcase its work:

* Release a Video that reflects the history and current activities of the National film, video and sound archives.

* Release a CD with some of the rare and unique and also some contemporary recordings on oral history and indigenous music preserved by the NFVSA

* Publish a booklet on our history, staff and work.

* Have a gala event in July where Miriam Makeba's testimony in 1964 before the United Nations Anti-Apartheid Committee is honoured and celebrated.

* Set up an exhibition of the history and highlights of film, video, sound and related industries (literature, theatre, art etc.)

* Have an Indigenous Music Conference in the Eastern Cape at the University of Fort Hare to acknowledge the work that has been done over the last ten years and take stock of what still needs to be done to collect, preserve, disseminate Indigenous Music in South Africa

* Have film conference and festival in which the before and after democracy work will be showcased and workshopped. The Legal Deposit of audio-visual material will also be promoted during the workshop and festival.

* Hand out NFVSA lifetime achievement awards to pioneers in the film, video and sound industries as well as those preserving our audio-visual heritage

* Host an Oral History conference under the auspices of the Committee on Oral Tradition (COT), a committee in the International Council on Archives (ICA) in November to acknowledge the work that has been done over the last ten years and take stock of what still needs to be done to collect, preserve and disseminate Oral History.

* Host an International Training Workshop for African Audio-visual Archivists, Librarians, media personalities, and musicologists under the auspices of FIAT (Federation for International Television Archives) and sponsored by UNESCO and IASA

All of the above will serve to market not only the NAFVSA but also how democracy benefits everyone in all industries.

PROGRAMME: LAUNCH: 40TH BIRTHDAY BASH OF THE NATIONAL FILM, VIDEO AND SOUND ARCHIVES, 3 APRIL 2004

Date: 3 April 2004
Time: 11 am
Venue: 698 Church Street East (near the lawns of the Union Buildings)
MC: Joe Mafela

11:00 - 12:00
Arrival of Guests
Entertainment: Heritage School of Music, Dinaka Group

12:00 - 12:15
Video

12:15 - 12:45
Reminiscing of the past Soapbox Speeches by Veterans

12:45 - 13:15
MTM Band

13:15 - 13:30
Deputy Director-General's Speech and cutting of Birthday Cake
Dolly Rathebe sings Happy Birthday

13:30 - 14:30
LUNCH

14:30 - 17:00
Performances by bands and more soapbox