The National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) has announced plans to establish a digital archive for all films approved and classified by the board.
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The Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Shaibu Husseini, revealed this in an interview with the Press on Monday in Abuja.
His statement comes as Nigeria joins the global community to celebrate the 2025 World Day for Audiovisual Heritage (WDAH), observed annually on October 27, with the theme, “Your Window to the World.”
Dr. Husseini noted that beyond its core mandate of film censorship and classification, the board also serves as a repository of approved films.
He added that, in keeping with the demands of the digital era, the NFVCB is taking steps to develop a comprehensive digital archive to preserve the nation’s classified films for future reference and research.
“When I was appointed by His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in January of 2024, the very first thing that I said we must begin to do is how to archive these films properly.
“There have been some archival efforts in the past, but the world has moved from that analogue era to the digital era.”
“It is time for us to begin to digitise these works and put them in a format that will make them easily retrievable.”
“At the moment, they are in a format where you can access them; we have downloaded some of the VHS into CDs/VCDs.”
“Now we need to turn the CDs and VCDs into formats that you can access them by just getting them via the link or tapping on the computer,” he said.
According to Husseini, the board has about 280,000 films ready for migration to the proposed digital archive, where they will be preserved and stored in formats compatible with modern digital technology.
“If you want to explore them, beyond seeing the titles, then you have to go and get the rights from the right owners because we do not have the rights to the films.
“We have submitted the proposal, and it has been approved by our minister and even at the higher level because it is expensive to digitise them.
“As soon as the 2025 budget is released, we will start the process of digitising them to put them in the right format,” Husseini said.
NAN/Oluchi