Le mois dernier, EURODOC a présenté à la Berlinale un guide intitulé "The EURODOC Producers’ Roadmap of Decolonial and Ethical Uses of Archive in Documentary". Partant du constat que, malgré plusieurs tentatives avortées, il n’existait aucune charte de déontologie sur l’utilisation d’archives dans l’industrie cinématographique, cette feuille de route est une première tentative de répertorier les bonnes pratiques à tenir pour les cinéastes, producteur·ices, fonds d’archives, etc. Le rapport est désormais disponible sur le site d’EURODOC.

Quelques extraits, qui permettent d’apprécier la diversité des questions soulevées :

• "Producers and institutions should budget for therapeutic supervision or psychological support for filmmakers and editors engaged in long-term work with distressing archival content."
• "Once your film is completed, resist the possibility to sell your rushes to the highest commercial bidder. Instead, consider depositing the material with institutions or community-based organizations capable of preserving them in the public interest and contributing to the redress of asymmetrical ownership structures."
• "Archival material should not be reduced to illustration, in conformity with mainstream market conventions. The increasing pressures toward colorization, aesthetic enhancement, and decontextualized “beautification” must be approached very critically."
• "We cannot continue paying very large amounts of money to private funds which have no interest in research, in preserving world heritage and above all, in respecting the source and the context of the archive it sells. The decontextualization and commercial fragmentation of historical material exemplify the risks of purely market-driven logics."

Pour découvrir le rapport dans son entièreté, c’est ici !