Programme (Archive)

Archive content is becoming increasingly prominent across TV and film, breathing new life into historic footage and creating fresh, compelling stories for today’s audiences. But as demand grows, how are we preserving the past while ensuring archive remains accessible, relevant and commercially viable for the future?

This session explores the evolving role of archive — from preservation, restoration and rights management to the creative and technological processes transforming historic material into topical, engaging content for modern audiences.

The emergence of AI promises many benefits for archive owners, giving them new and more efficient ways to understand the content they have and how to leverage it, as well as new forms of distribution and licensing. However, there is also the danger that in a world where almost anyone is capable of faking footage, there could be an impact on the value of the real thing. So what is the value of stored IP going to be? This panel will take a look at the opportunities and dangers for archives and IP in an increasingly AI-driven world, and will leave attendees with some concrete steps they can take to adapt.

Last year, Mnemonica launched Mnemonica Archive as a real-world solution for rights holders to unify the production, long-term preservation, and distribution of cinematic works. The roll-out of the platform was naturally accompanied by initiatives to promote the corresponding cultural shift required in the digital film industry, as well as a European cloud infrastructure and data sovereignty. In this session, Piero Costantini, CEO of Mnemonica, will share the recent evolution of this approach by discussing three of its main strands: how preservation should be grafted into the production cycle, how to face the dilemma between preserving content vs. preserving data, and how a peer-to-peer trust system for KDM generation could liberate film distribution.

Maintaining content archives involves important considerations around how and where to store your content to ensure it remains accessible in the future; how to tag and catalogue your content so you understand what you have and where to find it; how to digitise content on obsolete physical forms; how to monetise and market your archive; and so on. 

In this session, we hear from content owners and those managing huge archives about how they address these challenges. You’ll find out what the best approach is for creating a safe, organised and accessible archive of content for a range of different user cases.

Go behind the scenes of one of the year’s most ambitious archive restoration projects as we sit down exclusively with the creative team behind Wham! 10 Days in China. This special session explores the extraordinary journey of transforming decades-old footage into a premium Dolby Cinema release. 

From navigating complex archive permissions and copyright clearance to painstaking film grading, remastering and restoration, discover the technical workflows and creative decisions that brought this iconic story back to life. We’ll also examine the role of sound restoration, dubbing and immersive audio in creating a modern cinematic experience while preserving the authenticity of the original recordings. 

Bringing together experts from across archive, post-production and restoration, this exclusive Broadcast Tech Archive Forum session offers a rare insight into the challenges, innovations and collaboration required to breathe new life into historic footage for today’s audiences.

We go behind the scenes of the extraordinary archival work that brought Live Aid at 40: When Rock ’n’ Roll Took on the World to the screen, which has been nominated for a Broadcast Tech Innovation Award and an International Emmy. Discover how decades-old concert footage, photographs, recordings and unseen material were uncovered, restored and transformed into a compelling new documentary — preserving one of music history’s most iconic global events for a new generation.