Film: The Living Record of Our Memory

Why preserve film in a world where audiovisual materials seem so readily available online? That is the key question posed in Film, the Living Record of Our Memory, which features interviews with film archivists, curators, technicians, and filmmakers including Costa-Gavras, Jonas Mekas, Patricio Guzmán, Ken Loach, Bill Morrison, Fernando Trueba, Wim Wenders, and appearances by Martin Scorsese, Barbara Rubin, Idrissa Ouédraogo, Ridley Scott, and Ousmane Sembene. Together, they explore what film preservation is and why it is still so important to preserve celluloid, even in an increasingly digital world. Thanks to the tireless work of these film professionals, many of whom work unrecognized behind the scenes, we are still able to watch films that are more than 125 years old. This film pays tribute to their conviction that film holds our collective memory, and that access to film as it was meant to be seen may one day change a life. Film, the Living Record of Our Memory highlights the unique challenges of maintaining film, the cultural and political barriers to preservation, and the surprising risks of digital preservation. This work is critical because, as the film explains, so much of this heritage has already been lost forever.