Center for the Preservation of Community Audiovisual Archives (CEPAAC)
Chiapas Media Project/ProMedios (CMP/Promedios) launched in 1998 as binational collaboration facilitating the production and distribution of video, radio and multimedia through four regional media centers built and equipped with the Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico.
The Center for the Preservation of Community Audiovisual Archives (CEPAAC) holds over 1400 analog video tapes that were authored by CMP/ProMedios, community members and others and represents over two decades of Indigenous peoples’ struggle to achieve autonomy and dignity in the face of overwhelming obstacles. We know of no other existing archive holding such invaluable historical footage chronicling contemporary social and political movements in southern Mexico.
CEPAAC is located in our office in San Cristobal de las Casas. We have received grants from the UCLA Modern Endangered Archives Program (MEAP), the Lucius and Eva Eastman Foundation and the Mexican Institute of Cinematography (IMCINE) that have allowed us to organize and perform test digitization of different video formats in our collection. We are now able to see that our collection holds a wide spectrum of historic documentation of the Zapatistas and other progressive social movements in the region. The collection includes the human rights work of the Diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas; the evolution of the powerful grassroots women's movement in the region, as well as a micro view of the Zapatista movement and its integration into the daily life of the indigenous communities.
CEPAAC is unique in its autonomy and focus on community media and human rights documentation. From the beginning, we have understood that what we create needs to be a resource not just for accessing our video collection but as a facilitator and promoter of preservation of historic memory for the region and beyond.