From February 1st to April 30th, a first collection of videos and texts open to the whole community
The individual and family stories of the Titano community will be collected, protected, digitalised, preserved and enhanced by the new Multimedia Archive of San Marino Memories, managed by the University of the Republic of San Marino.
The initiative, announced today in a press conference that brought together academics and professionals at the headquarters of the Department of Human Sciences, will be divided into two sections: one linked to the audiovisual, to rediscover the private and unpublished film heritage kept in the republic, the other composed of autobiographical and similar texts, in written form.
From this point of view, the contribution of the San Marino community is crucial: the material will have to come from the citizens themselves. By the way, the Memory Study Center of the University of San Marino will open a call, starting from Wednesday 1 February, for the collection of amateur, experimental, independent and documentary films, as well as diaries, letters, audio recordings and more. The invitation is extended to anyone who has an emotional or other connection with the Titan.
The project, which provides for the training of personnel with specific skills for the cataloging of materials and the creation of an online platform for research and dissemination purposes, sees the participation of a series of figures involved on various levels: among them the teacher Maria Elena D'Amelio, the director of the Center for Research on Emigration Patrizia Di Luca, the scientific director of the Center for Studies on Memory Patrizia Violi, the scientific consultant Mario Panico and the head of cataloging Claudia Gattei, within the Department of Human Sciences directed by Luigi Guerra.
"Family films - explained D'Amelio after showing a trailer of the initiative - allow us not only to keep private memories, but also to put them in dialogue with the great story", therefore with the context in which they were made and the events of the period. At stake is material such as “reels, 8mm, VHS and DVD,” Panico stressed. The intention expressed by D'Amelio is "to recover and save this heritage also through digitization, to prevent it from disappearing". Violi echoed her: “Family films and diaries – the words of the academic – are not marginal but very important because they testify, among other things, forms and ways of representation”.
With respect to the texts, "we will welcome both written testimony now and elaborated in the past", specified Di Luca, who also read two excerpts. The original documents will be returned to the authors or owners, and cataloged in a system which will see, for each contribution, the creation of an online file "inserted in the library network of Emilia - Romagna and San Marino", assured Gattei. The one involved is a large-scale and long-term project: "Initiatives of this kind - pointed out Guerra - require constant attention over time, and this is precisely what we are committed to doing to carry on the archive".
Videos, writings and audio recordings can be made available by appointment by writing to amms@unirsm.sm.
The archive will be created in collaboration with Home Movies of Bologna – the national archive of family films, and the National Diary Archive of Pieve Santo Stefano.