RIMA Fest: People Against Oblivion is a festival dedicated to preserving digital memory and protecting independent journalism. It brings together archivists, researchers, artists, journalists, and activists from around the world to explore how truth can be safeguarded in an age of censorship and disappearing archives.

The festival is organized by Kronika, a project that designs AI-powered tools to preserve vulnerable journalism, expand public access to archives, and share its infrastructure with others. Kronika has created the Russian Independent Media Archive (RIMA) and the Central American Independent Media Archive (CAIMA), among other initiatives. Within the Smolny Beyond Borders program, Kronika’s founders and collaborators have also developed courses on digital archiving.

The festival will take place on November 8 in Berlin, November 9 online, and November 22 in New York. Among its key online events are the lightning-talk session “As Long As We Remember, We Resist,” featuring speakers from the Internet Archive, the Lesbian Herstory Archives, the Belarusian photo archive VEHA, and others; as well as “RIMA Highlights and Tools: Tour for Researchers and Journalists” and “From Archive to Insight: RIMA Fellows Showcase Their Work,” featuring Bard College scholars and faculty.

 We invite you to join, support our colleagues, and learn more about the work of Kronika and others engaged in civic and community archiving.