Colombia. On October 27, the World Day of Audiovisual Heritage declared by the General Conference of Unesco was commemorated in order to highlight the educational, cultural, artistic, scientific and historical value represented by sound and image archives as an expression of the cultural personality of peoples.
In 2002, UNESCO estimated that the volume of audiovisual and sound heritage material in the world was 200 million hours, of which half corresponded to audiovisual material.
In Colombia, for a decade RTVC has been carrying out projects that seek the protection and preservation of this material. Two years ago Señal Memoria and Señal Colombia commemorated this date with the screening of the documentary the end of memory and the inauguration of the vaults of Señal Memoria, a space that began its construction in 2013 with the financial support of FONTIC and the National Television Authority – ANTV.
Audiovisual memory places us in history through archives of different formats that preserve the essence of moments that survive anecdotes and memories. In 1997, with Law 397, Colombia adopted as a State policy the premise of protecting the cultural heritage of the Nation, by determining the importance of protecting, conserving, rehabilitating and disseminating everything related to heritage, with the purpose that it serves as a testimony of the national cultural identity, both in the present and in the future.
Although the first film materials in the country were images of landscapes and historical events, there are more elaborate records of the early twentieth century such as the 1915 documentary by the DiDomenico brothers 'The drama of October 15' based on the assassination of General Rafael Uribe Uribe or the fiction feature film 'Maria' of 1922.
In 1923 the director and producer of theater, Arturo Acevedo Vallarino founds the production house Acevedo and sons that had a validity of 23 years and left the country more than 50 hours of historical documentaries. Acevedo is considered a precursor of the feature film in Colombia, with the realization of more than five films in the 20s, among which 'Bajo el cielo antioqueño' stands out and a cinematographic newscast in the 30s and 40s, which every fortnight presented viewers with the film record of the most important events in national life. Highlights include: the accident of Gardel's death and the last images of the artist (1935), the first reigns of Belleza (1932), the first construction of an aqueduct in Bogotá (1934 -1938) and the first Bolivarian games (1938).
Currently, it has managed to recover and store more than 90,000 elements between film rolls, videos, cassettes and sound files. Among which stand out silent film productions of the twenties: Bajo el cielo antioqueño (1925), Alma provinciana (1926), Garras de oro (1926).
The challenges of heritage protection include: the adaptation of large archive sites with controlled humidity and temperature conditions, the use of chemical materials to maintain and protect them from the natural deterioration of materials and the challenges of technological convergence to facilitate access to information on different elements.
