/articles/free_the_archives

an anti-IP statement

state archives should be free. their contents should be made freely available for the people to consume, for the masses are who they belong to. not corporations, not bureaucrats, not only people that can afford the prices. to place them behind intellectual property restrictions means to turn history, memory and culture into a commodity. every single reel and frame is a record of the aspirations of its creator, and denying open access is an act of theft from the collective. we deserve to inherit what was made by us, for us.

intellectual property laws are walls built to keep these works out of the hands of those who need it most. for aspiring students, researchers, directors, producers, writers, operators, gaffers and overall creators, these laws turn the national film archives from a source of inspiration, a glimmer of hope and an opportunity into an obstacle course of fees, permissions, documents and legal barriers. every restriction limits their ability to study techniques, historical context and social narratives embedded in the art. the very people who should be learning from the archive are instead forced to pay or wait, while the work of countless labourers remains locked away for profit or institutional control. intellectual property does not, has not and will never protect creativity. it can only stifle it. it's singular purpose is to replace opportunity with exclusion. IP is a tumor which must be removed in order for the archive to be able to truly serve it's purpose of nurturing knowledge and empowering the next generation to understand and build upon the work of those who came before.

culture cannot belong to the market, and restricting access to the archives through intellectual property acts as a mechanism to preserve inequality in knowledge and cultural memory. to liberate the archive is to liberate history, to restore to the people what was always theirs and to open the path to aspiring students of the domain's history.

take this film for example: the hundred lei bill (1973), directed by mircea săucan. this film has been recently restored from its original reel. what happens to a newly restored film? after a few free screenings or even free online streaming events (this one's had both, it's been in the programme of the state cinematheque a grand total of 1 time and it's currently (as of 19 dec. 2025) free to stream on eventbook.ro until christmas day) it gets shelved. that's it. nothing more. it gets shelved until further notice.

their excuse? (and i've asked this personally) the archive is not a distributor. it only safekeeps them. though, naturally, the first question that comes to mind is why?. why don't they upload them to youtube, or even just permanent free eventbook streaming? they clearly have the digital files, it's not like they'd have to scan the reel itself! they've already done that for the restoration! this question remains unanswered.

so, unless a film distributor picks it up, cinepub, for example, a national+international heritage film distribution platform which usually uploads some of the archived films on youtube, picks it up, it will remain shelved and ultimately forgotten. what a shame to lose this beautiful piece of art which people have worked so hard on, not only on it's production, but also it's restoration. however, this is what happens when profit is placed above work itself.

alas, here is my attempt at bringing you the best available way to watch the hundred lei bill reconstruction: a screen recording of the eventbook video player (since the stream is DRM protected) with an outblown cadence, because the recording was done in 60fps, in spite of the film's original framerate. i was planning to apply temporal downsampling, though it produced a jittery video, so i decided that it's better to have a constant 60fps video file of a 24(?)fps film than a VFR video file if i can't have the perfect original framerate video file.

all of the people that worked on this deserve an enormous 'thank you', and all of the people that work to keep it gated from the masses, an equally large 'shame on you'.

100 de lei (1973) dir. Mircea Săucan (w/ english subs)

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