AUSTIN, Texas —The story behind the making of the PBS documentary, The Red Files,which provided important insight regarding politics, government and other aspects of the former Soviet Union, will be told as part of Archives Week, Oct. 9-14, at The University of Texas at Austin.
Episodes of the documentary include “Secret Victories of the KGB,” “Soviet Sports Wars,” “Secret Soviet Moon Mission,” and “Soviet Propaganda.” Archives week activities are presented by the University’s student chapter of the Society of American Archivists, along with the Graduate School of Library and Information Science to celebrate the importance and diversity of international archives.
These free activities will include presentations by guest speakers from around the world on topics of international interest. The story behind the making of The Red Fileswill be presented in Welch Hall, 2.246 on Oct. 10 at 7:15 p.m. by J. Mitchell Johnson and Gábor Beszterczey of Abamedia.
Abamedia’s work in the former Soviet Union began in 1996 at the invitation of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and led to the creation of the Archive Media Project. Abamedia produced The Red Filesusing Russian archival collections of photographs and films, audio clips and transcripts held by the Russian State Film and Photo Archives at Krasnogorsk.
Krasnogorsk is the major repository of historic documentary images of Russia and the former Soviet Union. Many of these documents previously had not been viewed by the public within or outside of Russia.
For more information about this and other Archives Week activities, contact David B. Gracy, II, Ph.D., director or The Center for the Cultural Record, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, at (512) 471-3892, or Mike Strom, president of SAA-UT Student Chapter at (512) 447-2608. Or visit Website address www.archivesweek.webprovider.com
