Moving History- An introduction to the IFI Irish Film Archive

Kasandra O’Connell, archivist of the Irish Film Institute

Date: Friday July 7th

Time: 3-4:30pm

Venue: Members Room, Royal Irish Academy, Dawson Street.

Kasandra O'Connell introduces the Irish Film Institute Archive and collections, with guidance on how to access this rich treasure trove of Irish social history. The collection dates from 1897 to the present, and provides a unique visual record of the development of modern Ireland in the last 120 years. It includes feature films, news-reels and documentaries, a good deal of home-movie footage, travelogues and advertisements; and the special collections.

Biography:

Kasandra O’Connell is Head of the IFI Irish Film Archive custodian of Ireland’s national moving image collection. She has been working in the cultural sector for 25 years, before commencing her position as Head of the IFI Irish Film Archive in 2000, she worked in conservation at the National Museum of Ireland and for Eneclann. She has a postgraduate qualification in Archival Science, an M.A. in Museum Studies and is currently undertaking PhD research in moving image preservation and policy at DCU. She represents the Irish government at the EU’s Audio-Visual Expert Group. She chairs an Advisory Group for the Department of Arts, Heritage & the Gaeltacht, working to implement the European Union recommendations for moving image heritage preservation and is currently finalising the findings of a survey of moving image collections in the State, the first of its kind in this country.

She has written about digital preservation and moving image archiving for a number of publications including Film Ireland, History Ireland, Journal of the Society of Archivists and International Journal of Film Preservation, and has contributed to a number of television and radio programmes on the subject. Her focus in recent years has been devising and implementing the IFI Irish Film Archive’s Digital Preservation and Access Strategy, developing the IFI Player and undertaking large scale preservation and digitisation project such as the recent Irish adverts conservation project.

This is a free ticketed event. To reserve your place please go online to https://tinyurl.com/julyexperttalk

The Expert workshops are curated by Fiona Fitzsimons, (Eneclann /Irish Family History Centre), & hosted by the Royal Irish Academy