Audiovisual Archives (Film Archive and Photographic Archive)

The MFA Film Archive was inaugurated in March 2000 by the President of the Hellenic Republic. Its purpose is to contribute to the preservation, promotion and proper use of the audiovisual heritage of Greece, in recognition of the enormous importance of audiovisual evidence for the political, diplomatic, social and cultural history of the country.

The material housed in the Film Archive includes about seventy hours of newsreels from Greece and the rest of the world, propaganda films and extracts from old, rare documentary films. By way of example, we may cite films by the Lumiere and Manakias brothers, reportage from the Balkan Wars, the Russian Revolution and the First World War. There is extensive newsreel footage relating to the Asia Minor Campaign and the inter-war period in Greece and Europe , the Second World War and the Greek Civil War, the Colonels' Dictatorship, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus , the restoration of Democracy and the early years of the new regime in Greece.

The MFA Film Archive has supplied material for several Greek and foreign documentaries, radio and television journals, artistic presentations and anniversary celebrations, making available audiovisual material and giving as much support as possible to the task of promoting the history of Greece . In the period 2001-2006 an annual academic one-day conference under the general title “The Film as Testimony” took place, which aimed to examine in depth the work of established Greek film directors. The inaugural conference was devoted to “Historical Sources and Commentary in the Films of Lakis Papastathis”, while for the years 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, the symposium carried the titles “Reality and Myth in the Work of Lefteris Xanthopoulos”, “Immigration and Film”, “Negotiations for War: Reenactment of War in Greek Cinema”, “History and Politics in the work of Pantelis Voulgaris” and “The cinematographic image as item of documentation” respectively.

It should be noted that the Film Archive has assembled its material exclusively for the use of researchers and it is under no circumstances available for commercial exploitation.

The Audiovisual Archives include the Photographic Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which possesses an extensive collection of photographs, covering the period from the late 19th century to the 1980s. The subjects of the photographs cover a wide spectrum of events of modern Greek political, diplomatic, social and cultural history, special occasions organized by Greek residents abroad, and so on.The photographs in the collection are organized, identified and described in an electronic database.

The Film Archive remains closed for researchers since 2007.