The prestigious international FIAT/IFTA “Excellence in Media Preservation Award 2025” has been awarded to the project “RAI Newsreels Digitisation – From 16mm Films to High Quality Master Files”, dedicated to the digitisation of the RAI television news film reels (1952–1985).

Developed through close collaboration between Rai Teche, the Digital Library (Central Institute for the Digitisation of Cultural Heritage of the Italian Ministry of Culture), and CRITS (RAI Research, Technological Innovation and Experimentation Centre), the project stands out as a benchmark of excellence in the preservation of the nation’s historical memory.
Rai benefited from a major funding contribution from the Ministry of Culture (MIC), through the Digital Library, which recognised the cultural value of these contents as part of Italy’s heritage.

The project also significantly involved other RAI departments within the CTO area — including Technologies and ICT — as well as the administrative contributions of the Procurement and Finance departments, which made possible the development of the technical infrastructure (such as the Quality Control rooms and ingestion systems) and the operational management of the digitisation process.

During the highlight of the Gala Dinner & Award Show, Giorgio Balocco and Giuliano Donnini from RAI Teche, together with Roberto Borgotallo from RAI CRITS, took to the stage to receive the coveted award. Earlier that day, they had presented the project as a contribution to the FIAT/IFTA 2025 Conference, illustrating the results achieved and the technical solutions adopted throughout the digitisation process.

The project, aimed at fully digitising the RAI news services preserved on 16mm film, encompasses a unique heritage of around 320,000 reels, equivalent to 8,000 hours of broadcast material. This invaluable archive represents more than three decades of Italian history — from the immediate post-war period to the 1980s — when RAI was the country’s sole national broadcaster.

CRITS played a key and decisive role in all stages of the project — from defining digitisation strategies to selecting the most suitable preservation file formats and developing the Quality Control systems. CRITS also provided crucial support in implementing innovative Artificial Intelligence solutions for metadata extraction and enrichment, optimising cataloguing workflows and ensuring the long-term accessibility of the audiovisual heritage.

The entire digitised corpus is now integrated into the Rai audiovisual content catalogue, ensuring its consultation and editorial use. A low-resolution version, accompanied by AI-generated metadata, will also be available on the Digital Library platform for research and educational purposes.

The project is part of RAI’s broader commitment — and particularly that of CRITS — to digital preservation and technological migration, an area in which the company has been actively investing, including through its proactive involvement in the FIAT/IFTA Preservation & Migration Commission.

To celebrate this important milestone, Rai Teche has produced the video “Rivoluzione Teche: dalla pellicola al digitale” (“Teche Revolution: From Film to Digital”), available on the RaiPlay multimedia platform at the following link:
www.raiplay.it/programmi/rivoluzionetechedallapellicolaaldigitale .

Roberto Borgotallo (RAI/CRITS, centre) and Giuliano Donnini (RAI/Teche, right) together with Xavier Jacques-Jourion (Director-General of the Belgian State Archives, left) during the project presentation at the conference on 30 October.

Etienne Marchand (INA, left), Chair of the jury, is about to announce the winner of the award, in the presence of the representatives of the shortlisted projects, from left to right: Sunny Tan (NLB, Singapore), Roberto Borgotallo, Giorgio Balocco and Giuliano Donnini (RAI),  Grzegorz Krynicki (Filmoteka Narodowa).