Inside the Archive #73: From west London to north-west Morocco

What does it mean to care for film heritage and who gets to decide how it is seen, shared and remembered? These questions shaped this year’s FIAF Congress in Rabat, where archivists, filmmakers and cultural practitioners gathered to address the realities shaping film memory today: displacement, inequity, fragile infrastructures and the urgent need for more active international collaboration.

FIAF, the International Federation of Film Archives, was founded in 1938 by the BFI, MoMA, Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Cinémathèque française and the state film archive of Germany. Today, it operates as a kind of United Nations for film heritage organisations: convening a global network to support preservation, training and advocacy across the sector.

Hosted by the Cinémathèque Marocaine, the 2026 Congress marked only the third time FIAF’s annual gathering has taken place in Africa. Under the theme ‘Reimagining African and Arab Film Memory: Methodologies, Collaborations, Restitutions and Dialogues’, discussions focused on restitution, access and sustainable archival infrastructure, from preservation funding to cataloguing and metadata systems.

The context was particularly significant. In 2021, UNESCO concluded that African cinema’s “best surviving elements” are “almost never found in Africa”, while only eight African states currently have national film archives. Across the Congress there were urgent calls to move beyond custodianship towards models centred on participation, access and shared agency. Additionally, an “archive” was described as a “living resource” or “a site of memory”, and the act of archiving as “an act of resistance” against cultural erasure.

Archives of many different scales were represented, with strong participation from African and Arab organisations – some independent, some state-supported, many operating despite limited resources. The programme situated these conversations within a wider cinematic lineage, referencing figures such as Ousmane Sembène, Safi Faye and Sarah Maldoror, and emphasising the importance of collaboration across regions. Initiatives and networks such as Archives Without Borders exemplified this, supporting archives in contexts of crisis and conflict.

The BFI was represented by five delegates working across preservation, cataloguing, access and international partnerships. Arike Oke, Executive Director of Knowledge, Learning and Collections is a member of the FIAF Executive Committee and was involved in the planning the Congress symposium.

Elena Nepoti, Film Conservation Manager and member of FIAF’s Technical Commission, shared updates on international projects supporting collections care and preservation. This included the new Fundamental Archiving Resources platform, designed to bring together practical guidance and low-cost approaches for archives globally. Elena also presented on the BFI’s forthcoming Moving Image Conservation Research Laboratory (MICRL), introduced in this video.

Natasha Fairbairn, Information Specialist and member of FIAF’s Cataloguing and Documentation Commission, is the co-author of international standards in cataloguing practice. She presented at the Commission’s workshop on the progress of the next edition of the FIAF Moving Image Cataloguing Manual, a key resource for archives worldwide.

Katrina Stokes, Head of Archive Access, and Selma Kerlow, Head of Cultural Partnerships, focused on questions of access, repatriation and collaboration. Katrina’s work leading on repatriation access, alongside the BFI’s internal Shared Film Heritage Access Working Group, meant that the Congress was particularly useful for progressing discussions and making new connections. Together with colleagues, Selma succeeded in strengthening relationships with international partners, further developing the BFI’s commitment to collaborative and equitable approaches to film heritage.

Together, the group came away with new relationships, a better understanding of where the BFI can contribute and support African and Arab film heritage, and much to carry forward from conversations with colleagues across the globe. As one speaker reflected, “a tree does not make a forest” – a reminder that the future of film heritage relies on collective stewardship and cultural interconnectedness.

Thank you to the Cinematheque Marocaine for creating the space for these vital exchanges, and FIAF for its continued work in bringing the international archive community together.

– Selma Kerlow, Head of Cultural Partnerships, Natasha Fairbairn, Information Specialist, Elena Napoti, Conservation Manager and Katrina Stokes, Head of Archives Access. 

The 29th edition of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival saw a welcome return to the newly refurbished Castro Theatre – a stunning 1920s Spanish Baroque movie house. Coming from a country for which not a single 1920s grand cinema survives, this is a special treat.

I was invited to attend the festival to introduce our submission, High Treason (1929), a fun British sci-fi drama with a gloriously 1920s Deco ‘look’ which clearly appealed to the festival programmers – its Metropolis-like sets by Andrew Mazzei and costumes by the fabulous illustrator and couturier Gordon Conway, really bring to life this tale of a couple caught up in the machinations of evil international arms dealers provoking two superpowers to the brink of war.

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival’s USP is about audience experience, with the fabulous original theatre setting, impeccable projection and exceptional attention paid to the musical accompaniment which ranges from individual accompanists such as BFI Southbank regular Stephen Horne, but more often combinations of talented international silent film specialists with a range of instruments such as percussion (Frank Bockius) violin (Guenter Buchwald) and saxophone and flute (Mas Koga) and many others. The Monte Alto Motion Picture Orchestra are a popular regular feature of the festival with their 1920s period scores. Another nice (and I think unique) feature are informative and witty slides that introduce the next picture while the audience is waiting, produced by the program book editor Shari Kizirian. Star of the slides this year, all clad in silver lamé was High Treason’s lovely Benita Hume (who married not only Ronald Coleman but George Sanders too!).

The big headliners of the festival, that will certainly be making an appearance at the BFI Southbank soon, included the long-awaited restoration of Queen Kelly (1929), Erich Von Stroheim’s out-of-control and unfinished vehicle for Gloria Swanson (Pamela Hutchinson, author of a book on the film, will be introducing this at the BFI in September) and a welcome digital restoration of King Vidor’s The Crowd (1928) which has been only available in one print for decades.

Ernst Lubitsch’s So This Is Paris (1926) added sparkle to a very strong programme of films, too numerous to list, but to pick a few favourites: Lewis Milestone’s The Caveman (1926), a screwball comedy in which a bored rich girl makes over a New York delivery man; Hula (1927), with Clara Bow vamping Clive Brook in Hawaii; His Greatest Bluff (1927), a Riviera farce starring German action man Harry Piel; Blazing Days (1927), a sprightly western with fabulous stunts directed by William Wyler; and the Japanese Paper Print Project, a collection of toy paper films with animations so bizarre they have to be seen to be believed. We hope to bring these to London too.

– Bryony Dixon, Curator of Silent Film

When considering the optimal film elements for a restoration, the preference is to use the earliest generation of materials available. Duplication inevitably introduces generational loss, like the image losing sharpness, higher contrast, and printed-through artefacts (for example dust, dirt, scratches). Ideally, this would mean using the original picture and sound negatives but sourcing them can be difficult: some may be damaged, unaccounted for, or dispersed globally.

Many of pioneering Filipino filmmaker Lino Brocka’s films have elements deposited across Europe: a decision he made with French filmmaker Pierre Rissient. The BFI National Archive has preserved the original negatives for Brocka’s 1974 masterpiece Weighed But Found Wanting. However, an inspection of the original picture negatives revealed that reels one and six are missing. We traced these elements through historical documentation such as acquisition records, inspection reports, and other related matter. The level of documentation naturally varies for each item, and in this case, the paper trail was thin. Records of a late-1990s print job, which included individual grading notes for every reel except the missing ones, suggest that they have been unaccounted for since then.

To confirm the missing status of the reels, we examined all elements we hold associated with the film, inspecting the contents of around 40 cans of original negatives, distribution prints, intermediates, and English subtitle negatives. Assessing this range of materials was fascinating: identifying each element builds a map of a film’s material history. Although the missing reels remain elusive, this search uncovered suitable substitutes.

We identified a combined internegative copy of reel one, made in 1997, in pristine condition. As a negative, it wouldn’t have been directly struck from the original and is at least two generations down. For reel six, we identified an original language combined positive print from 1976 without subtitles. This would have been used for cinema exhibition and carries the typical scars from a projected life, alongside some colour fading, but was still usable.

We prepped and scanned these elements before sending the digital files to L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, who carried out the restoration work. The restored film screens at Il Cinema Ritrovato later this month. This work is a reminder of the importance of preserving a variety of materials – even those whose value isn’t immediately obvious – as they ultimately enabled a composite and complete restoration of this film.

For more information on this 2026 4K restoration, visit the Il Cinema Ritrovato website.

– Milo Holmes, Film Conservator

It’s all happening in West London, as revealed by a new report which draws out the impact of the hidden screen industries – as well as the better-known likes of Ealing Studios – on the UK economy. These ‘convergent’ screen industries span film, television, advertising, games, post-production, VFX and immersive content.

I was intrigued to attend the launch of the report at the House of Commons where Professor Emily Caston of the University of West London, introduced her research at an event hosted by Rupa Huq, MP for Ealing Central and Acton. There’s an expansive definition of West London which includes nine boroughs, the busiest hub being the City of Westminster and spanning out west to Hillingdon and north to Barnet.

The research argues that the under-recognised activities of an astonishing near-7,000 companies across these boroughs effectively function as the engine for the entire UK screen economy. Adrian Wootton, CEO of Film London, having just returned from the Cannes Film Festival, added that the impact of the UK screen industry also stretches right across the globe.

Charlie Ingall of Versa Studios, probably keen to avoid appearing overly London-centric, quoted the line “A rising tide lifts all boats” to point out the benefits to the UK-wide screen sector of the ripple effects from the plentiful activities in west London, citing a meeting he held there that resulted in a series being filmed in Manchester. The key message of the event – and report it publicises – is, in Ingall’s words, “A strong west London is actually a strong UK.”

– Ros Cranston, Curator of Non-Fiction

We recently published our latest Inside the Archive video, the newest addition to a growing YouTube series that shines a spotlight on the work and expertise that goes in to maintaining the collections of the BFI National Archive.

In this short documentary, learn more about the career of artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman and discover what a number of precious objects held in the archive reveal about Jarman’s work and legacy.

Huge thanks to Simon McCallum, Tabitha Austin and James McKay for their expert insights, and please do keep your eyes peeled for more trips Inside the Archive over the months ahead.

– Alex Prideaux, Marketing and Events Manager

The Inside the Archive blog is supported by the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.