South African Film and Video Project

Culture, Communication and Media Studies (CCMS), University of KwaZulu-Natal, is a partner  in the The South Africa Film and Video Project (SAFVP – http://www.africanmedia.msu.edu/).
SAFVP is a collaboration of seven institutions in South Africa and
Michigan State University (MSU). SAFVP is creating a definitive
multinational database of film and videotape about South Africa. It
will contribute to saving important deteriorating videotape and film
resources on South Africa and making those images more widely available
via the distributors of these titles.  The MSU project has been
running since the late 1970s. CCMS’s association with it started in
1989. Digitization of Community Video Educational Trust VHS videos
started in Cape Town last year. A website is being build by the Project
for CVET. 

The MSU database
currently consists of over 13 000 entries. It provides access to
public, schools and teachers, scholars, and professionals, especially
in the USA, with distributor information attached. The entries cover
the broad and deep heritage of the film and video that recorded the
panoply of the world’s most extraordinary history of political and
racial transition of the twentieth century – from colonialism, to the
apartheid state, to the coming of democratic rule in South Africa and
other countries of the Southern Africa region (see also http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccms/amp/africancinematv_default.asp). 

The project aims to:

1. Inventory what is available in KZN
   especially (and where appropriate elsewhere in South Africa),
   entering sources into the database, even if only to note it as an
   archival source of the production.  We re particularly interested in
   VHS videos from the 1980s and early 1990s, but also in titles released
   in DVD format made later.

2. Negotiate the rights to digitize for use by scholars to consult for research purposes at the two participating sites:

1.  

   1. Two digital copies to be supplied to the owner or provider

1.  

   1. Two digital copies to be held by
      CCMS for scholarly consultation and use (one master for archiving
      and one copy lodged in the UKZN Library for scholarly review)

   2. Two digital copies to be held by
      Michigan State University for scholarly consultation and use (one
      master for archiving and one copy lodged for scholarly review)

   3. Obtain meta-data on the production for database entry and add description of content.

SAFVP does not represent producers, earn
income from their work, compete in distribution or act as their
agents.  The project is an archival one which involves the building of a
web-based index of titles, and to thereby promote such titles through
their distribution agents. Such titles will continue to be bought or
rented from the producers’ own distribution agents who will be listed
on the site.     We would like to enter as many titles as possible onto
the data base to ensure as wide an accessibility as possible.   For
further information please contact Keyan at:  tomasell@ukzn.ac.za

Keyan G Tomaselli

Professor

Culture, Communication and Media Studies

University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard College Campus