Journal of Film Preservation - FIAF

efore 1945. As an economic organisation Triglav Film had no commercial
concerns for the storage of the film material. That is the reason why
no arrangements had been made for the preservation of the material.
Considerable parts of the material had suffered damage.
The archive decided to copy all inflammable films to non-flammable
acetate film and to rescue the Slovene film heritage. Since 1968, the first
year of the Slovene film archive’s activity, Triglav Film has delivered films
produced between the two wars, in wartime, and part of the film
material produced in the post-war period (mostly newsreels produced
until 1950), altogether 56 films.
In 1971 the production company Viba Film delivered to the archive part
of the sound production and all original materials of feature films and
short films shot between 1955 and 1965 (12 feature films and 131 short
films). The company had retained its own productions only of the
previous five years and only those with market value. At the same time it
supported the proposal for the earmarked funds for the Slovene Film
Archive. It argued in favour of the archive as a professional and safe
storage facility for the national film production and as the basis for a
future film library.
In the second half of the 80’s there was expansion in the Film Archive.
Due to the requirements for new transfers and intensive professional film
processing new employees were hired. The archive purchased new
technical equipment. In addition to the cutting machine that had been
purchased in the 70’s, equipment was acquired for reviewing sound
prints, for reviewing film negatives, as well as two moviolas and a
cleaning cabin for the films.
• The legislation about the preservation of film materials
The film archive itself had been founded on the basis of the legislation
that classified film as archival material. The aforementioned law,
approved in 1966, requires producers to deposit their films no later than
thirty years from the date of production. In practical terms, this has
clearly been seen to be too long a period, as the producers did not show
sufficient concern for the preservation of the film material and many of
the films were destroyed. Changes to the law made in 1973 did not
eliminate this problem. This loophole in the film preservation law has
been partly corrected by the Film Law that specified that producers were
obliged to hand over one perfect film print to the Archives within six
months. The original material was still to be kept by the producer and
therefore the conditions for complete film preservation were not
ensured.
In 1981 the Law of natural and cultural heritage came into effect. It
stipulated that the producer had to transfer two perfect film prints to the
Archives two months after the final print and within three years after
that, the original material. The latest Law of archival material and
archives dates from 1997 and specifies that the producer has to transfer
to the Archive of the Republic of Slovenia the original material together
with one film print immediately after the final print. The producer is
83 Journal of Film Preservation / 58/59 / 1999