The Make Film History project recently won the Excellence in Unlocking the Value and Potential of Archives Award at the FIAT/IFTA Archive Achievement Awards. FIAT/IFTA is the world's leading professional association for those engaged in the preservation and reuse of broadcast archives and the project was submitted for the award by BBC Archive Editorial. The judges commented:

"This project goes beyond rights issues and opens up selected collections for creative reuse. It is a great example of a cross-border collaboration between AV archives and academia, allowing students of universities and colleges to browse, request a free download and use clips for their creative work. This innovative business model allows for engagement and provides training of young people in creative reuse of archives, showing the value of the archive as an inspirational source and supporting a practice-based education of next generations of filmmakers. It creates a solid and inspiring frame that could be adjusted by other organisations worldwide."

The Make Film History project is developing a new, sustainable model for the creative reuse of archive material for non-commercial use by emerging filmmakers, supported by project partners, the British Film Institute (BFI), BBC Archive Editorial, the Irish Film Institute and Northern Ireland Screen.

Funded by AHRC and the Irish Research Council, the project has created a new research network around the creative reuse of archive material by young filmmakers, developing new partnerships between academic researchers and a range of non-academic partners - audiovisual archives and cultural heritage organisations who preserve and license this material; schools and training providers developing new talent in the creative industries; and regional film festivals who bring the local film community together.

The project is led by Professor Shane O’Sullivan (Kingston School of Art) and Dr Ciara Chambers (University College Cork) and supported by research assistant Dr Colm McAuliffe. It builds on the success of the innovative Archives for Education project, extending the scope of the creative reuse of archive material beyond higher education to young filmmakers across the UK and Ireland.

The Make Film History project was funded by UKRI-AHRC and the Irish Research Council under the 'UK-Ireland Collaboration in the Digital Humanities Networking Call' (grant numbers AH/V002066/1 and IRC/V002066/1).