FIAT/IFTA Regional Seminar For
North Africa TV Archives, 24 - 27 April 2002

Hotel Nova Park

The seminar in Tunis, Tunisia ,was a historical event with reference to the history of the association. FIAT/IFTA has few members in Africa. We have never initiated a local seminar in Africa at all. As a member you may ask the question why the Board decided to set up a local seminar at all? The answer is easy to give you: According to The Statutes of the Association , Article 2 , the association's objectives and purposes are to: "...encourage members to organise local and regional meetings to benefit members within a certain geographical area..." , so far the letters of the Statutes. The Training Commission chaired by Dr. Branko Bubenik initiated the arrangement in close contact with FIAT member Wahid Braham, Head of TV Archive ERTT. The seminar was hosted by ERTT. The work of the General Secretary was to administrate the seminar and to chair the meetings. It is very important that we work close together with the local contact person. Wahid Braham did an excellent job attempting to give us all a good time and a good seminar. Flexibility and personal enthusiasm are the key words. It is impossible to prepare every detail in advance and matters have to be solved while we work.

Thank you, Wahid Braham! The aim of the seminar was to get in contact with audiovisual archives situated in North Africa. The programme consisted of contributions from many FIAT members who have been very professional in giving lectures worldwide. Well-known FIAT lecturers present were: Eva-Lis Green , Alfredo Tropa, Sue Malden, Dominique Saintville, Alain Goosens, Dr. Anatoly Vystorobets, Anna Nikitina, Dr. Branko Bubenik, Richard Wright, Vittorio Sette, Dr. Peter Dusek, Denis Frambourt, Catherine Lacken, Nancy Angel, just to mention some.

The papers from the Tunis conference will appear in the Documents section.

The new audience, North African archivists were informed about the many issues of the development of audiovisual archives - issues already presented at the worldwide conference of the association. We repeat the lectures for a new audience - that is the secret of setting up local seminars. Because the Norh Africans prefer to speak French due to historical reasons, I was happy to see that INA contributed with an active and enthusiastic group chaired by the new President General Director of INA, Mr. Emmanuel Hogg.

If we want to approach North African audiovisual archivists in the future we have to either communicate with them in Arabic or in French. A new challenge to FIAT. Arabic or French: Arabic is spoken by almost 200 million people in more than 22 countries , from Morrocco to Iraq and as far as south as Somalia and the Sudan to quote information published on Internet about the Arab World.

If we want to exchange information between archives in Africa and if we are aiming at getting new members, translation of already published FIAT documents into French or Arabic is a must - and above all, a financial challenge! It is my hope that we manage to keep a close contact with North and West Africa after the seminar and we welcome the participants to join FIAT/IFTA. We need to be told in the future what are the problems you are facing and how we can assist you in improving the standard of your collections.

Folk dancers...

Tedd Johansen
FIAT/IFTA General Secretary