Irish Film Archive
Irish Film Institute body for film culture preservation / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Irish Film Archive is part of the Irish Film Institute (formed in 1943, incorporated in 1945) the body charged with the promotion and preservation of film culture in Ireland.[1]
Irish Film Archive | |
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53.34466670556333°N 6.264474148079186°W / 53.34466670556333; -6.264474148079186 | |
Location | 6 Eustace St, Temple Bar, Dublin, Ireland |
Established | 1943 |
Website | https://ifi.ie/ |
The Archive collects, preserves and makes accessible Ireland's moving image heritage. It is the leading resource for students of Irish film and film history. Its collection includes 30,000 cans of film,15,000 tapes, the Tiernan MacBride reference library and over 30,000 stills, posters and documents. The collection reflects Irish film production for over a century, with material from 1897 to the present day held in climate controlled vaults in Dublin's cultural quarter, Temple Bar.[2] The collection incorporates fiction, features, public information films, amateur material, documentaries, newsreels, experimental film and animation.[3]
The Archive was originally formed as a department of the IFI in 1986, becoming formally established in 1992 when the Irish Film Institute building in Temple Bar was opened.[4] By the mid-2000s were almost full and a campaign was launched in November 2011 to fund a new archive facility.[5] The campaign sought to raise €300,000, and featured Irish actor Saoirse Ronan.[6] The Archive partnered with Maynooth University to develop a second archive ,building on the Maynooth campus and in 2018, the new facility was officially opened,[7] tripling the archive’s capacity.[8]
As part of the Irish Film Institute the Archive receives 25 percent of its funding from the Arts Council of Ireland.[9] The Archive has paid agreements with Screen Ireland and Coimisiún na Meán thus ensuring a comprehensive collection of state funded audiovisual production is centralised and preserved.[10] The Archive has also received project specific funding from both organisations, as well as the Heritage Council, the EU Commission and the Irish Research Council amongst others.[11]
Regular screenings of material from the collections are held at the Irish Film Institute and at other venues in Ireland and abroad. The Archive collections are exhibited nationally and internationally through the IFI’s Irish Film Programming Department.[12] Collections from the Archive are also made available to the public via the IFI Archive Player, which is an online viewing room that is free to use and available worldwide www.ifiplayer.ie.[13] It is a resource for those interested in Ireland's film heritage and is used regularly by academics, students, teachers, film-makers, researchers, film enthusiasts and the general public.[14]
The Archive is the only Irish member of The International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF)[15] contributing to the FIAF book Tales from The Vaults in 2023. IFI Archive staff have been included as faculty in FIAF training initiatives and have presented at a number of FIAF Congresses.[16] In 2019 the IFI Irish Film Archive was awarded full accreditation by the Museum Standards Programme of Ireland (MSPI), an initiative run by the Irish Heritage Council.[17] The Head of the IFI Irish Archive is Kasandra O’Connell who has been in the position since 2000.[18]