World Day for Audiovisual Heritage is recognized every year on 27 October. UNESCO selected the day in 2005 to raise awareness of the importance and risks of preserving audiovisual and sound documents (films, sound and video recordings, and radio and television programs).
- There are events across many countries organized by regional and national archives for sound and film broadcasters, museums, and libraries, as well as the essential audiovisual associations, including those of the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA), International Council on Archives (ICA), International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives, as well as the International Federation of Film Archives.
- The primary goals of naming the date as UNESCO stated 27 October:
- Raising awareness of the necessity for the preservation
- Create opportunities for the celebration of specific local or national aspects of the heritage
- In highlighting how access to archives
- attracting the attention of the media to issues related to the estate;
- enhancing the cultural value of audiovisual heritage
- Underscoring the importance of audiovisual heritage is in danger, particularly in developing countries.
- The 2013 and 2012 events are coordinated through the Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations, SouthEast Asia & Pacific Audiovisual Archives Association (SEAPAVAA), and the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives.
- Audiovisual archives are a source of the stories of people’s lives and their cultures across the globe. They provide a valuable heritage that serves as a confirmation of the collective memories of all.
- It is also an invaluable source of information because they represent cultural, social, linguistic, and diversity. They assist us in growing and better understanding the world we live.
- The Preservation of this heritage and ensuring it is accessible to the general public and future generations is an essential objective for all institutions of memory and the general public. It is why UNESCO Archives has launched the project “Digitizing our shared UNESCO history” with this objective in the back of its mind.
- The World Day for Audiovisual Heritage (WDAH) celebrates the adoption 1980, in the 21st General Conference, of the Recommendation on the Safeguarding and Preservation of Moving Pictures. It is a World Day that provides an occasion to increase awareness about the necessity of taking urgent actions and acknowledge the significance of audiovisual records.
- In this manner, World Day also serves as an occasion for UNESCO’s Member States to evaluate their accomplishments in implementing the Recommendation of 2015, including in digital Form and the Preservation of and Access to Documentary Heritage.
The celebrations of WDAH in 2022
- 2022 is the year that the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage will be observed in conjunction with the 30th anniversary of the Memory of the World Programmer.
- The celebrations will run from October 27 to November 5, 2022, with the theme “Enlisting documentaries to help promote inclusive, fair, peace-loving societies.
- “The public ability to access information is the important source of information inspired by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development document heritage” aspect of the Target 16.10 in SDG 16 and its “fundamental freedoms” component.
- About the topic for the festival, although the issue of providing accessibility to all people to document heritage is still central, There is a clear emphasis on creating equitable, just, peace-loving societies that use the documentary heritage.
