About African Skies:

African Skies is a foundation for audio-visual archives and productions on Southern Africa. African Skies was founded in 1995, shortly after the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994. The roots of African Skies can be found in the Dutch Anti-Apartheid Movement, the solidarity organization in the period between 1970 and the end of Apartheid in 1994 for the liberation struggle of the African National Congress. The Dutch AAM facilitated and sponsored the foundation of African Skies.


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 Objectives:

The objectives of African Skies are:
  • to manage an extensive archive of historically valuable video footage and edited productions made by the now dismantled Dutch AAM in cooperation with a couple of Dutch independent documentary makers and relevant persons and institutions in Southern Africa
  • to further the use of the archive especially by filmmakers, researchers and journalists
  • to enter into contact, to stay in touch with and cooperate with relevant bodies

 Activities:

During the period till 2003 the main activity of African Skies has been a program to restore and catalogue the available video footage material. Copies of the archives will be returned to South Africa and the neighbouring countries; thus the material has been made available in the region itself - a repatriation of visual history.

At present African Skies is preparing an international workshop with filmmakers and archiving institutes in Europe and Southern Africa. Purpose is:
  • to trace and compile an inventory of filmmakers and their material on Southern Africa
  • to jointly discuss the options for restoration, copying, archiving and catalogueing and to see what can be done to handing over the materials to relevant institutions in Southern Africa
  • to investigate what kind of co-operation or co-ordination is useful, considering the financial aspects
The importance of this activity as well lies in the need to preserve valuable visual material and to make it accessible to students, experts, journalists etc. in Southern Africa and elsewhere in the world.



 Sponsors:

African Skies has been sponsored by: The African Skies website was produced by Africaserver.


 Archives:

The archives of African Skies consist of edited video productions and footage concerning the history of the South African liberation struggle in the period 1982-1994. Key items are:
  • history of the struggle of the African National Congress
  • South Africans in exile
  • life in the refugee camps of the ANC in Southern Africa
  • aggression of the apartheid regime in neighbouring countries
  • history of the anti-apartheid movement in the Netherlands
  • conferences in Amsterdam, a.o. CASA and Malibongwe.
The archive also contains an overview of news items broadcasted at Dutch television.



 Contacts:

African Skies maintains contacts with archives on Southern Africa in the Southern African region itself, in the USA and in Europe.



 Board:

The board of African Skies consists of:

Ms. Hedda van Gennep, chairperson (documentary maker)
Mr. Fons Geerlings, secretary-general (director Africaserver in Amsterdam)
Mr. Vincent Vendel, treasurer (institutional researcher University of Amsterdam)
Ms. Annemarie de Wildt, member (curator Historical Museum of Amsterdam)
Mr. Maarten Rens, member (documentary maker)