World Day for Audiovisual Heritage
Next: October 27, 2027
Some memories only exist on tape.
The story
Where it comes from
UNESCO's General Conference proclaimed the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage in 2005, on a proposal from the Czech Republic. The date recalls 27 October 1980, when UNESCO, meeting in Belgrade, adopted the Recommendation for the Safeguarding and Preservation of Moving Images, the first international instrument to declare that film and television recordings matter to our cultural and historical record. The day is a reminder that film, tape and sound recordings are fragile, and that much of the past survives only because archivists kept it.
How it's celebrated
Film archives, libraries and broadcasters around the world hold screenings of restored films, talks and other events, and use the day to explain the quiet work of keeping old recordings alive. At home it is a good day to digitise an old family video, label a box of cassettes, or sit down with someone older and watch something from their youth.
Did you know
- A 2013 Library of Congress study found that 70 per cent of American silent feature films are completely lost.
- Singapore's Asian Film Archive holds the Cathay-Keris Malay Classics, films made in Singapore between 1958 and 1973, the country's first film collection on UNESCO's Memory of the World Asia-Pacific Register.
- In Southeast Asia's heat and humidity, old film can develop 'vinegar syndrome', turning brittle, shrinking and giving off an acidic smell.
Coming up next
- International Animation Day · October 28, 2027
- Deepavali · October 29, 2027
- International Day of Care and Support · October 29, 2027
- First Ballpoint Pen Patent · October 30, 2027
- Halloween · October 31, 2027
- World Cities Day · October 31, 2027