This year, here at the UCD Film & Video
society myself and my committee members decided to raise money for the IFI Irish
Film Archive in an attempt to help the IFI and the Archive preserve our national
heritage, culture and history through the moving image.
Natasha Waugh and Kasandra O'Connell
It was important for us to partake in raising
money for the Archive; for many of us that study film in UCD, it is a valuable
educational resource. Students of film use the library there on a regular
basis, and those of us that will go on to study for an MA in Film Studies will
need to use the Archive for research purposes. After seeing the ad featuring Saoirse Ronan and learning more about the fund, we decided to raise money to help out.
We got in touch first with Kasandra
O’Connell (Head of the IFI Irish Film Archive) as we wanted to put together a
special event that raised awareness of the importance of the Archive and the
historical significance of much of what is kept there. We aimed for an event
that showed people footage from the Archive from various moments throughout Irish
history and that also showed people the importance of keeping the Archive
properly maintained and preserved.
I met with Kasandra to go over the event
details and she was kind enough to give me a tour of the Archive; the tour
included the highlight of my year as the Film Society Auditor which was to hold
the Oscar that is kept down in the vaults!
The society got busy organising the event
and on March 28th Kasandra came into UCD and presented footage from
the Archive that ranged from Ireland in 1910 through to the ‘60s, ‘80s and also
included some amateur footage; notably footage from Vietnam War and an amateur
sci-fi called The Thing and Them,
filmed on Super-8. We were also joined by UCD Film Studies lecturer Harvey
O’Brien, also on the IFI Board, who spoke at length about the IFI’s history and
the significance of the moving image in Irish culture and education today. The
event was a huge success, and it encouraged many of our members to donate and
to find out more about the Archive for themselves.
Before this event however, we collected
money at our other Film Society events including our weekly film screenings,
guest speaker evenings and social events, including an Open Mic night on
Valentine’s Day.
At Filmsoc, we were extremely grateful for
Kasandra’s visit and we were delighted to present the Archive with a cheque
for €130 that we hope will help the Archive with its aim to restore and
preserve Irish Film!
Natasha Waugh
UCD Film & Video Society Auditor
To learn more about the IFI Irish Film Archive, please visit our website: IFI Archive.
Read a full story on the new IFI Preservation and Reaserch Centre to be build at NUI Maynooth here.
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