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Black and White and Colour

The Yorkshire Film Archive’s purpose is to collect, preserve and make available moving image material made in, or about our region. Our collection, currently totalling about 15,000 titles, spans a wide range of subjects, including rural and urban life, industry and agriculture, family life, holidays and leisure, and wartime in the region. It includes documentaries, advertising, amateur footage, newsreels, animation, regional television news and educational material.

Since arguably the earliest instance of cinematography took place here in Yorkshire in 1888, millions of feet of film, videotape and, now, digital moving images have been shot, creating a wealth of material documenting the region. Collecting and preserving these is a dynamic process and the decisions we make about why, how and what we collect are often complex and difficult. Though we strive to build a collection that is inclusive, reflecting the breadth of moving image history and the wide range of social, cultural, political and geographical aspects of the region, we are aware of a number of ‘gaps’. One such gap relates to the diversity of Yorkshire people represented. While we have examples of material made by or about Yorkshire’s ethnic communities in the collection, these do not sufficiently represent the full diversity and size of the region’s population.

It is fair to say that this is true of most UK film archives, both national and regional.  However, that is no reason for it to continue, so the Archive is taking proactive steps to identify the gaps in its collection, measured against Yorkshire’s ethnographic make-up, to locate potential acquisitions and to discover why, so far, it has received so few films made by or about black or ethnic minority communities.

The Board and officers of the Archive do not see this as a short term fix. This initial research will raise long-term issues, not only about how we collect and acquire material but how the organisation itself approaches representation. It will inform the planning of future work. This report is an important first step.

We are grateful to Yorkshire Forward, who have funded this work, and to Steve Manthorp and Shanaz Gulzar from Manthorp ACT, who undertook this research for the Yorkshire Film Archive.

Colin Philpott

Chair, Yorkshire Film Archive

Click here to download the Black & White and Colour report (pdf)