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HOW THE RED
ARCHIVE OPTED
FOR THE THIRD WAY
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS IN east EUROPEAN
ARCHIVES
By Angela Spindler-Brown, UK-based
Researcher
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The fall of communism also meant
a new beginning for east European
archives. Initially, archive footage
was used by the new political class
to demonstrate to its newly empowered
electorate the real face of the communists
they'd just replaced. For the first
time Russians saw the Gulags, the
Lublyanka Prison and a devastated
environment on their television screens;
Poles were shown the killing fields
of Katyn, Czechs, nuclear missiles
at Soviet bases established in he
country after the 1968 invasion.
Archive footage was also used to bring
back into public consciousness those
who the communist regimes had tried
hard to erase from peoples' memory.
Tsar Nikolay II and his family, Hungarian
patriots with Nagy in 1956, Dubcek
during the Prague spring. In the heady
days at the beginning of the 1990's,
film archives were called upon to
make, as well as hold the past.
For western programme makers, the
east European archives had other attractions.
Many perceived them as liberated collections
allowing everyone to "borrow"
freely according to his/her archival
needs. Archivists in eastern Europe
still keep lists of all those independents,
from western Europe and North America,
who helped themselves to material,
made promises … and were never
heard from again.
The Mixed Economy
The transition of east European economics
also plunged the region into a long
and deep recession that led to a general
degradation of public services. Funding
of film archives, never generous under
communist rule, was ruthlessly cut.
Today, 10 years later, the national
archives of central and eastern Europe
are still under-funded but they have
evolved a simple survival strategy
… a sort of mixed economy, a
third archival way.
The archives -- partly state funded
-- provide footage to their public
service television channels at a special,
local price. Each programme can use
about 10 minutes of archive material
prepaid by the station. Local independents,
usually commissioned by the local
TV anyway, work under similar conditions,
though local budgets are minuscule
compared to western ones.
A half an hour historical documentary,
partly shot in London, could be delivered
to Czech TV on time and on a budget
under 200,000 crowns -- that's about
£3,600, maybe $5,750. western
customers, however, are charged western
rates. This is more than simply a
valuable revenue stream. It keeps
the archives going. Nina Nelidova,
in charge of marketing at the Moscow
Gosteleradiofond, which holds Soviet
television and radio programmes from
the 1920s until 1993, says "The
cost of each licence fee is decided
on the merit of each project. And
it is the head of the organisation
who decides. There are no rate cards."
Nor can any be found in Warsaw, Budapest
or Prague.
Payment Upfront
For British and American productions,
I have been quoted $100 per second,
world rights, 10 years, but not all
media. Deals are always possible,
but archive directors have learnt
their lesson; they now drive a hard
bargain and expect upfront payment.
With faster courier services, new
markets are opening up in the west
for a greater variety of sometimes
new material. Specialised archives
have been inherited from a multitude
of former institutions that have either
been abolished or collapsed. So the
Czech National Archive now incorporates
collections from the Army film archive
and what's left of the old Secret
police, the StB, mostly surveillance
videos.
Television libraries in the former
eastern Bloc, geared to supplying
their own stations, charge less than
the national archives. An additional
plus: their collections are computerised
and most footage is on tape. And now
digital TV is taking over.
In Warsaw's television news department,
during my last research visit there,
technicians were busy transferring
news footage onto Digibeta. Director
of the Prague-based National Film
Archive, Vladimir Opela, says that
neither computerisation nor digitisation
of his film collection is on the agenda
for the near future. Preservation
of film material is the priority.
"We have just received 20 boxes
of film from a school near Brno. It
is dated from the 1920s." Now
after the euphoria of the 1990's when
history was being revised and big
bold images were needed, it's vital
to safeguard those precious moments
when the past comes to life. "Those
are the exciting moments," says
Opela.
A sad fact of life everywhere but
especially in eastern Europe today,
is that exciting moments don't pay
the bills. Still running on a shoestring
budget, to save money, the Czech Film
Archive had to shut up shop for three
weeks this summer.
Angela Spindler-Brown, UK-based Researcher
First published, Autumn, 2000
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Email: angela@spi.ftech.co.uk
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