Construction of new film depository has started
The construction is funded by a program of the Ministry of Culture intended for care of the national cultural treasure. The foundation stone of the construction will be tapped on 24 March at 2 PM by the Minister of Culture Mr. Daniel Herman. The building will be located in a village in Prague-West District on a plot of the existing depositories of the NFA from the 1970s and 1990s.
The new depository at 1,820 m2 of built-up area and 21,500 m3 of enclosed area will hold up to 100 million kilometres of film, which is almost three times the distance from the Earth to Venus.
The depository of contemporary documentation contains key documents for understanding history of the national cinematography. 770 boxes in which they are preserved folded into continuous row next to each other would exceed the length of a competition swimming pool. The depository of large-scale posters preserves 1,500 valuable prints in specialized suspension equipment where they will be wound on non-acidic tubes with a diameter of 30 cm. If the tubes would be put next to each other the total length would be 300 m. Very rare glass photographic negatives that capture portraits of film personalities, footages from filming or trailers for films that were formerly screened in cinemas before the actual performance will get a specific storage system too.
In the mobile shelving system that allows efficient use of space primarily non-flammable colour materials will be deposited. This is the whole colour production of the Czechoslovak and the Czech cinematography on non-flammable film, i.e. from the 1950s to the present, and also securing materials to older films that the NFA copied from nitrate to non-flammable materials. These include, among others, films by Hermína Týrlová, Jiří Trnka or Karel Zeman. To the new depository, some valuable black-and-white films will be moved too, such as collection of Jan Kříženecký, pioneer of the Czech cinematography, the first scientific films from the beginning of the 20th century, collections of the Czech avant-garde (for example films by Alexandr Hackenschmied) and documents and commercials of the company Baťa or collection of films by Jiří Hanzelka and Miroslav Zikmund. The National Cultural Heritage – record of trial of Milada Horáková will also be deposited there.
Implementation of the construction starts in mid-March. The constructors of the company HOCHTIEF CZ plan to complete the new building within a year.