In 1992, the Librarian of Congress warned that documentaries and home movies were vanishing faster than archives could preserve them. Today, that crisis is not just technical; it’s political. As censorship rises, public institutions are defunded, and climate threats grow — the stakes for filmmakers of color are not just about their own films but ensuring that Black, Brown and Indigenous histories can continue to circulate in society through this form.

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Experiment 8

Restoring and Archiving Film to Spark Renewed Interest

Learning Goal

Can restoring and archiving a beloved archival film create critical discourse and career validation for the filmmakers and help to secure a film’s place within the canon?

Approach

This experiment aimed to understand how preservation and archiving could be used to create critical discourse at a politically potent moment in history, and secure the film’s place within the film canon, while also building career validation for the filmmakers.

Key Takeaways

  • Audience Trust

    Enthusiastic audience response reflected trust in the convening organizations and a desire for sustained connection

  • Resistance Narrative

    Campaign theme of “Preservation as Resistance” connected publicity to current issues from a place of power, positioning audiences as agents of change

  • Preservation + Restoration

    Restoring archival film is not simply a good marketing hook, it is a necessary act of resistance to censorship and historical erasure today

Featured Film

A LITANY FOR SURVIVAL: THE LIFE AND WORK OF AUDRE LORDE

Directed by Ada Gay Griffin & Michelle Parkerson

90 mins | 1996

Film Nominated by:

Third World Newsreel

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