Aap Tepper, the section leader of the film archives digitalization in the National Archives of Estonia, explained on "Terevisioon" on Tuesday that the biggest part of the digitization started in 2018. By the end of 2023, th team had managed to digitalize 245 hours worth of film materials, 142 of which make up for cinema views, 70 documentaries, and around 31 hours of feature films.

The most time-consuming part is preparing old materials and preserving them. "Digitization is fast, but the post-digitization processes are time-consuming. You can digitize in various ways, but we want to digitize so that the photo is sustainable and will live on for decades," Tepper noted.

At the "Terevisioon" studio, they showed clips of two films. The first one "Nõukogude Eesti nr 4" (1950) gave an insight into how they made movies at the time. The second, "Nõukogude Eesti nr 13" (1970), speaks about the construction of the Viru Hotel.

"On one side, we see the creation of a new structure, but in the background, we are shown a changing picture of the city. Although the panoramic views are thematical, we cannot get over or around that we are shown the everyday life, the changing picture of the city, and Estonian life," Tepper commented about the importance of cinema panoramic views.

In addition to the films, the National Archives of Estonia also deals with photo and sound archives. Tepper brought a glass negative into the studio to talk about the vast Jaan Riet glass negative collection that has reached the film archives and can now be properly explored.

"He was active in Viljandi from the beginning to the middle of the 20th century. The almost 70,000 frames are a very interesting sample from the life of one town over half a century. We have an insight into people's everyday life, the city picture, portraits of people who are interesting to look at from the future to the past," she explained, adding Riet once photographed artist Konrad Mägi and conductor Miina Härma.

"Although photography has changed over the past hundred years, what is photographed has not changed a lot," Tepper admitted.

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