Archive
Ever wondered what happens to films and videos after they’ve been made and screened a few times? Well thankfully they usually don’t get thrown away but are looked after in media archives. Media Archives are specialist places where all the original masters and prints can be stored in ideal conditions. Because archives can store many thousands of items, a lot of work has to go into preserving and cataloguing.
Archives not only provide opportunities for people to enjoy films again, they are also an important repository of our histories and our cultures. We can learn about how people lived, worked, dressed, spoke and behaved through watching moving images from the past.
The West Midlands does not have a regional archive, but we are supporting MACE, the Media Archive for Central England , to create a single archive for the whole of the Midlands. You can find out more about MACE by visiting their website. The site also has useful links to other archive sites, and an online database for films that MACE have already catalogued.
There are also a number of important smaller archives and collections in the region including, visit the links page for more information on them.
Please make sure you visit this section regularly to keep up to date with all of the current projects we’re dealing with and to find out what is happening in the screen media exhibition sector in the West Midlands.
