The photographic archives span the period from the foundation of UNESCO until 2000 and contain photographic material of UNESCO programmes, activities, and events (conferences, meetings, Director General visits). In addition, the photo archives consist of images used for exhibitions or publications of UNESCO (e.g. the UNESCO Human Rights Exhibition prints and negatives found in the series MC).

The film archives of UNESCO are divided into three parts:

• The archives of film productions, containing about 7500 film cans of material produced by UNESCO itself.

• The archives of reference films, containing about 1100 works which not have been produced by UNESCO itself but have been given to the organisation by NGOs, foreign film producers or member states.

• The archives of distributed films, containing around 2500 copies of 210 films. These films have been produced by the organisation and concern different programmes or projects.

Online search of a portion of Unesco film material is possible via: UNESCO Archives Multimedia Database. Digitizing Our Shared Unesco History

All other film material is indexed in an electronic database, originally created and maintained by the Division of Public Information.

For questions regarding access to the film archives, or to request a search for film titles in the electronic database, please contact: archives@unesco.org

The sound records contain mostly sound recordings of conferences and other events, speeches of the Director General and other important persons, but also music recordings, interviews and the UNESCO radio programs.