UNESCO and heritage archives bodies across the globe open ‘Your Window to the World’ and invite the audience to discover collections, such as the 430 hours of recorded testimonies of the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial or the digitalized students’ works of New Spanish Cinema pioneers.
27 - October: UNESCO and the Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Association (CCAAA) celebrate the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage (WDAVH) to recognise the importance of preserving audiovisual memory.
As the year 2025 marks the 20th anniversary of the initiative, audiovisual archives around the world take the opportunity to raise awareness of the importance and urgency of protecting audiovisual materials to ensure their long-term availability and accessibility.
“Audiovisual archives help us grow and comprehend the world we all share. Conserving this heritage and ensuring it remains accessible to the public and future generations is a vital goal for all memory institutions as well as the public at large” reads UNESCO’s note on the Day.
“In a world now wrought by insularity and struggling with the pain of war, moving images, aural and oral recordings are effective tools to bridge differences, bringing about much needed empathy, compassion and encouragement” said Karen Chan, Chair of the CCAAA.
National bodies and stakeholders of the heritage archives community worldwide may register here to add their events to the 74 celebrations already submitted for 2025, including film screenings, panel discussions, photo exhibitions and other activities, both in person and online and either on or around the 27th of October.
The National Archives of France, preserving around 60,000 titles, participates in WDAH 2025 with screenings of ten old film archives, such as a silent, black and white film from 1912, titled the ‘National film on French agricultural machinery’, directed by J.-C. Bernard.
The Filmoteca Española participates in the celebrations offering free and online its iconic ‘IIEC–EOC Collection: a Milestone in Spanish Film Heritage’, during 14-31 October 2025. The collection of practical works from the Institute for Cinematographic Research and Experiences (IIEC) and its successor, the Official School of Cinematography (EOC), features students' creations from Spain’s historic film schools pioneering the New Spanish Cinema and other key movements.
The collection was declared an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC) in 2025, as one of the country’s most important public audiovisual archives.
UNESCO’s ongoing initiatives supporting the Day include the UNESCO Memory of the World (MoW) Programme and its International Register. Heritage searchers may access 541 registered inscriptions, 74 of which newly added in 2025, themed as opening ‘A Window to the World’, where “sound and image can bridge time, place and understanding”.
One such inscription refers to the more than 430 recorded voices heard in the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial from Germany, with the testimonies of witnesses, survivors and perpetrators of the Holocaust.
Within UNESCO, the project "Digitizing our shared UNESCO history" covers 7000 hours of audio recordings, 5000 photographs, 75 hours of films and videos and more than 1,25 million pages of different documents.
Find more here
Image 1 by we-o_rd35rxy0spjt42vbd from Pixabay - Free for use under the Pixabay Content License.
Image 2 - Courtesy of the CCAAA.
Image 3 - Courtesy of the Filmoteca Española.
