Screen Archive South East, a moving image archive, has been awarded up to £50,000 over two years to provide cultural leadership in the care, interpretation and development of screen heritage collections in south-east England and to play a leading role in broadening access to these collections to promote diversity and inclusivity.
The award demonstrates on-going national support for its work by the national public agency for film.
Screen Archive South East is a publicly funded regional film archive and has served the region since it was established in 1992 by the University of Brighton. It works in association with the British Film Institute and a consortium of local authorities.
The archive is dedicated to collecting, preserving, digitising, cataloguing and providing public and commercial access to its magic lantern, film, videotape and digital file collections. They document the rise of screen culture and represent the changing nature of life in the south-east and the UK from the late 19th century to the present day.
Dr Frank Gray, Director of the Screen Archive, said: “Thanks to the UK’s Lottery players, this very special award will enable us to continue to build our public collection and share it with everyone both now and in the future.”
Importantly, he said, alongside the financial award, the Archive has met the British Film Institute’s (BFI) framework of Diversity Standards which aim to encourage behavioural change and inspire project leaders to use more inclusive practices both in creative content and recruitment. BFI said: Screen Archive South East has successfully demonstrated a solid commitment to inclusion that encourages both equality of opportunity and addresses under-representation in the screen industries.
For more information on the work of Screen Archive South East and to view its online collection you can visit Screen Archive South East.
Screen Archive South East recently launched a call for films that reflect people’s lives under lockdown, ‘Chronicling COVID’.
To share a film with the archive, email: screenarchive@brighton.ac.uk.