Extract from ABC News
Films made in Papua New Guinea have been in danger of disintegration. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)
In short:
Work is underway to preserve Papua New Guinea's collection of more than 1,300 film reels and tapes, stored at its small National Film Institute in Goroka, before climate change causes permanent damage.
Humid conditions and a history of flooding have created a far-from-ideal environment for maintaining a fragile film collection.
What's next?
The National Film and Sound Archive hopes its partnership with Papua New Guinea could lead to similar projects with other Pacific island nations, especially as climate change poses a growing threat.
They tell the story of Papua New Guinea's rich history and heritage, but culturally significant films from the island nation have been at risk of being lost forever.
"It's a race against time," film archivist Zoe Baru said.
PNG's small National Film Institute (NFI) is located in Goroka in the country's Eastern Highlands and houses a collection of more than 1,300 film reels and tapes.
"Our power supply sometimes is unreliable, so … storage becomes an issue," Ms Baru said.
"With climate change, the place is getting hotter."
Work is underway to preserve films recorded in the island nation. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)
Humid conditions and a history of flooding have created a far from ideal environment for maintaining a fragile film collection.
"When I first started, there were already signs of our film deteriorating and the vinegar syndrome, it was just pungent," Ms Baru said.
Vinegar syndrome is a type of acetate film decay.
An 'urgent' partnership
Enter: the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA).
Using a $200,000 cultural diplomacy grant, the institution partnered with the NFI to preserve the parts of the trove.
Culturally significant films were selected, packed and sent to Australia. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)
"It was urgent," NFSA deputy chief executive Jacqui Uhlmann said.
"The collection was at risk, but also the institution was really looking for ways to support their staff in caring for the collection."
Culturally significant films were selected, packed and sent to Australia, where they were assessed by NFSA staff, cleaned up and digitised.
NFI staff received training in Canberra.
NFSA deputy chief executive Jacqui Uhlmann says the collection is at risk. (ABC News: Mark Moore)
A system, dubbed the Remote Onsite Digital Access (RODA) studio, was specially designed and sent to Goroka.
"What the staff have said to us is that they now have really built an understanding about AV archiving, but that the RODA system, which gives them access to the material on-site, is particularly significant because they can have that ongoing access to the digitised material," Ms Uhlmann said.
'Maintaining memory'
Ms Baru, who is the NFI's only archivist, said the partnership had been transformative.
The digitisation process is slow and painstaking work. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)
"We're just so grateful, it just leaves us speechless at times," she said.
"When I first joined the NFI, I only thought that archiving meant to just keep them stored in a cool condition and then just leave them there."
Challenges remain at the institute, including funding security, and there is plenty more content to digitise.
"It's a forever job," Ms Baru said.
"You have to continuously do things that will help sustain your archives, sustain your collections.
"This collection depends entirely on you and the practices that you set up."
The project involved film carriers being transported to the island. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)
While the earliest known moving images from Papua New Guinea date back to the early 1900s, Ms Baru said it was not until the 1970s that residents began holding the cameras themselves.
"For younger people, now that they're exposed to more recent technology, the film archives become a handy tool to them because they are learning through watching and they're hearing their stories from the past," she said.
"You're very emotional when you realise that what you're doing, you're actually maintaining memory for the next generation."
Telling the story of a nation
A key film preserved during the project was the 1982 movie Tukana-Husat I Asua.
It tells the story of a university dropout caught between modern life and traditional village values.
The film was gifted back to the NFI last year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Papua New Guinea's independence.
A still taken from footage recorded in Tukana in Papua New Guinea. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)
"Every nation has those cultural works that tell the story of that nation, and for Papua New Guinea that was Tukana," Ms Uhlmann said.
The NFSA hopes its partnership with Papua New Guinea could lead to similar projects with other Pacific island nations, especially as climate change poses a growing challenge for audiovisual collections.
"It made me realise how much small interventions like this have big, big cultural impact,"Ms Uhlmann said.
"Cultural partnerships can be as impactful as economic partnerships when we talk about building relationships between nations."
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