Film Preservationists Aim to Recover Lost Cultures

Stefan Lovgren
for National Geographic News

October 30, 2003

When the Taliban regime swept into power in Afghanistan in 1996, its notorious religious police knocked down the doors of the country's film libraries, confiscated all of the movies, and burned them on giant bonfires.

In an instant, more than 40 years of culture went up in a plume of smoke.

Or so it seemed.

Anticipating the Taliban's cultural crusade, custodians of the Afghan film archive had taken the precaution of hiding all the negatives behind false doors and in secret compartments. In the end, not a single work was lost.

Now, two years after the Taliban's abrupt removal from power, the French national film archive, INA, is leading a project to re-create the positives of the films in an effort to restore Afghanistan's cultural memory.

The co-sponsored project is the first in a new National Geographic Society initiative—the Visual Memory Project—which aims to recover and preserve the visual record of creatures and traditions around the world that have no other legacy but film.

Thousands of feet of world history and national memory may be disappearing every day, as heat, cold, and lack of funding destroy old negatives and priceless reels of film.

"There are hot spots all over the world where species and cultures are disappearing," said Mark Bauman, who is leading the project for the National Geographic Society. "The last legacy of some of these animals, languages, and traditions is often a piece of celluloid that's decaying somewhere."

Never-Before-Seen Footage

The Afghan collection of film rarities ranges from a 1960s-documentary on the country's then-thriving Buddhist community to extensive, never-before-seen war footage from the mujahidin's ascent to power in 1992.

"Massoud, the main military force under the [former] government, had one of his men trained as a cameraman," said Bauman. "Over the years he shot on everything from hi-8 to mini-DV, and it's some of the most powerful war footage in existence."

Several countries have expressed an interest in having their film collections restored. The Chinese government has invited conservationists to open China's many film archives. Bauman says he's looking to move on to countries in southeast Asia, such as Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

"All of them have a lot of what I call 'lost world' content," said Bauman. "That is, a lot of species that have disappeared over the last century, a lot of languages that have been lost, and traditions and cultures that have disappeared together."

Lost Languages

Many indigenous peoples have an intimate and unique knowledge of local plants and animals. Much of this knowledge has been captured on film, and could provide clues on lost forms of agriculture and uses of medicinal plants.

Perhaps even more importantly, rare films and documentaries could help preserve indigenous songs, poetry and oral traditions.

"You hear so much about biological loss of life," said Wade Davis, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and an expert on struggling cultures. "You hear much less about what I consider to be an even more serious situation: the rapid loss of cultural diversity."

Davis believes the best indicator of this cultural erosion is the dwindling number of languages spoken in the world.

According to the United Nations, there are as many as 7,000 spoken languages worldwide. More than 4,000 are classified as indigenous. Papua New Guinea has the most languages, with 847 different tongues used. At least 2,500 languages may be in danger of immediate extinction.

Researchers have estimated that more than 500 languages are spoken by less than ten people. Of the 175 native languages spoken in the United States, 55 are spoken by fewer than 10 people. Half of the languages that were spoken 50 years ago are not being taught to school children today.

"Language is not just vocabulary and grammar. It's the flash of the human spirit," said Davis. "It's the vehicle through which the soul of a culture comes to the material world, and every language is like an old-growth forest of the mind."

He resents the idea that some cultures will naturally become extinct.

"These aren't delicate societies destined to fade away by some kind of natural law. They're dynamic, living peoples being driven out of existence by external forces," said Davis. "I don't want to live in a world where my language is eradicated or becomes like a cultural nerve gas that swamps other languages."

A Database of Knowledge

With the Visual Memory Project, Bauman hopes to create an invaluable database of cultural and scientific knowledge, from which host nations can reclaim lost languages, technologies and cultural memories. He believes the uses for the material are almost limitless.

"For example, you're going to get visual data that will allow you to do three-dimensional recreations of archeological sites that have been destroyed by war or acid rain or a whole range of things," he said.

For now, the project is in a fundraising pilot phase. The National Geographic Society's partners include the World Bank, the Asian Pacific Broadcasting Union, and INA, the French National Archive.

Once the program is up and running, work could go on for decades.

"There are huge swaths of the Earth that will keep us occupied for a long time to come," said Bauman. "What we hope to do first is go after the low-hanging fruit, big archives with a lot of material that are not catalogued, where we know a lot of this material exists."

Editor's note: Institutions interested in the project may contact Mark Bauman (e-mail: mbauman@ngs.org; telephone: +1 202 775 6589) for further information.