Issue 00 — Spring 2025
/5
Lisabona Rahman and Markus Ruff on the technopolitics of film preservation
What does it take to preserve film history in the digital age? Lisabona Rahman and Markus Ruff discuss film archival practices across borders. Their conversation explores how digitisation reshapes access, the importance of community-led preservation, and the tension between technological possibility and historical integrity. Together, they reflect on the challenges of working with incomplete materials, shifting restoration values, and the politics of representation in archival work.
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GALLERY
Markus Ruff lives and works in Berlin. He studied Visual Communication and Art and Media at the University of the Arts in Berlin and at the Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires. Since 2011, he has been section head of archival projects at Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art, leading film digitisation and restoration projects. He also engages in training in the field of film archiving and preservation.
We are exploring archival practices and looking at technologies for preservation and digitisation in the context of transnational film histories. Markus, how does Arsenal approach its preservation work?
MR Arsenal’s archive is quite unique because, from the beginning, it grew out of curatorial practice — not out of a preservation mandate. When the association was founded in 1963, the mission was to show films. We did it in our own cinema in West Berlin, which opened in 1970, and then through the organisation of the Berlinale Forum. This led to the creation of a distribution arm, making films accessible primarily to German-speaking audiences in the former West Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Today, Arsenal’s collection holds about 10,000 titles. What’s remarkable is that around 75% of them are international productions. So it's not a typical archive focused on domestic cinema — it's a very global, very diverse collection. And that shapes the way we think about preservation, too.
Our engagement in film preservation started when we realised some analog prints in our collection had become unique — sometimes the only surviving versions of certain films. The first find of this kind was a 16mm positive print of Kya Hua Is Shahar Ko? (What Has Happened to This City?, India, 1986) by Deepa Dhanraj. We had a German-subtitled print from its screening at the Berlinale Forum in 1988. That print became crucial for the film’s digital restoration in 2012.
Cases like these point to a larger truth: a big part of film history hasn’t survived in perfect condition. Often, we don't have the original camera negatives. Instead, we have prints that show wear — from projection, handling, climate or other specific conditions related to where they have been preserved. Every physical version we find carries traces of its journey, and tells us something about how the film was valued, circulated, and cared for.
The shift from analog to digital brought new possibilities in this respect, but also new challenges: who can afford the technology and tools for digitisation? And who can guarantee the long-term conservation of data? Analog film, stored properly, can survive decades on a shelf. Digital files, on the other hand, demand constant attention — migration, backups, new infrastructures.
Besides, digitisation promised to democratise access. But access to what, or more precisely, which part of film history and whose voices?
Analog film, stored properly, can survive decades on a shelf. Digital files demand constant attention — migration, backups, new infrastructures.
LR Let me pick up on some of the things Markus touched on, but from my own practice. Markus and I work together, even though I am not employed by Arsenal. Our collaborations usually involve what we consider transnational work.
I want to explore the idea of activating archives. Archives often carry this image of being static — a place, a building, a collection — and also very exclusive or controlled. I agree with Markus that digital technology promised something else: openness. Before, you had to physically go to the archive to access it. Now, digital tech opens up the possibility of producing knowledge without being there.
I trained in moving image preservation and curating in Amsterdam, and during my studies from 2011 to 2013, there was already a big question mark around what digital would mean for archivists and restorers. It promised democratic access and borderless engagement. But in the past 10 years, we’ve also seen the rise of internet capitalism. What felt like a utopia in the mid-90s — the internet as the Esperanto of technology — turned into something very different. Whoever has the money controls the technology. But where there’s control, there’s also resistance. Digitisation enabled the activation of archives, but also activism inside and beyond archives.
The role of the archivist is often seen as neutral or apolitical, supporting the status quo. But I don’t think this was ever truly the case. It’s just that the epistemic activities of the archive have long supported power. That has to change — and it is changing. My work is about using current technology to activate and establish a form of activism as an archivist or restorer.
Digitisation enabled the activation of archives, but also activism inside and beyond archives.”
The question of ownership structures in tech applies to physical tools, preservation frameworks, and the platforms that make films accessible and enable the generation of knowledge. All these technologies have evolved over the past three decades and can be activated and subverted. Could you tell us more about what it means for you to activate archives?
LR I'm interested in combining analog, digital, and network technology to open access to archival material — not only for its content but to question the power structures behind it. With moving image technology, this is essential: film is both material and information. That used to be inseparable, but now it’s not. In practice, I try to work in ways that aren't dependent on one kind of technology.
For example, in Jakarta, I might engage with a 35mm negative in a public archive — often the only existing element. However, if the film has decayed or only exists as a negative, it's not projectable. Instead of giving up, I’ll turn to local post-production companies — ones used for commercial work, advertising, or contemporary film production. They might have scanners or digital tools, and if I brief them carefully, I can repurpose those tools to access historical film material.
It’s not restoration in the traditional sense, but it lets me activate the archive and share it with a critical public. In Jakarta, there’s no dedicated film restoration lab like Bologna’s L’Immagine Ritrovata, where I used to work, but we create access through community activation and collaboration. Technology was made to be adapted and hacked — it demands that we play with it. That’s the only way I’m interested in using it.
We create access through community activation and collaboration. Technology was made to be adapted and hacked.
MR When we digitise films, every technical choice we make has consequences.
Engaging critically with film history, however, doesn’t mean exhausting all the tools in the process just because a software allows us to do this or that. The use of restoration tools often leads to a leveling out on the material-aesthetic level. With AI progressing rapidly, and with digitisation today being often commercially driven and linked to re-releases, this will only become a bigger question. But the production history of a film is an inseparable part of the work.
The context, location, and resources available to archivists and film restorers around the world today have an important impact on the outcome. Something I admire about Lisa’s approach is that — despite limited resources — she finds ways to restore a film and conserve important characteristics of the specific source material. This allows her not only to make the material accessible, but also to create awareness of the politics affecting archiving and preservation processes.
This principle also guides my practice at Arsenal, and Lisabona and I share it when we collaborate with other archivists, researchers, and institutions. Our approach is about rethinking access and preservation not just as technical tasks, but as a form of active engagement — with history, with memory, and with the politics of how we show films today.
Access and preservation are not just technical tasks, but a form of active engagement — with history, with memory, and with the politics of how we show films today.
This form of archival activism seems driven by discovery — particularly community-led discovery — where narrative leads and technology follows. Audiences are often told more about restoration formats (“Now in 4K!”) than about why a film is being restored or the stories behind that decision. If a film is being restored now, there’s likely an intention to reach a particular audience. How do these re-release strategies shape restoration?
MR I would say that many factors play a role in why a film is restored — by whom and for whom. Going back to Deepa Dhanraj — she is also part of the Yugantar Collective, a feminist group that produced four mid-length films in the 1980s. One of these, Tambaku Chaakila Oob Ali (Tobacco Embers, India, 1982), documents the strike of female workers in a tobacco factory. When Dhanraj and researcher Nicole Wolf started the preservation project, they showed the film to a group of present-day union workers. They were deeply impressed by what these women had achieved at the time: they saw their struggles reflected in the story and wanted to show the film to all union workers across the country.
The aim of preservation, ultimately, should be access. But access looks different depending on the context — and it requires each case to be considered on its own merits. For instance, how could trade unions in India access this film? After the restoration was completed, the collective published a website about their work, and all four titles can now be streamed in India free of charge. At the same time, the films are now also available on the Arsenal streaming platform and in North America via Criterion, in these cases for a fee.
LR We also can’t always define a distribution strategy from the outset. I recently worked with a collective in Jakarta — Kelas Liarsip — researching women’s roles in Indonesian cinema. We found information from 1962 that a film by Sofia W.D., who is dubbed a pioneering woman director from Indonesia, was shown at Berlinale. So we were following this lead for several months. Almost in parallel, another colleague, film historian Umi Lestari, discovered an earlier film from 1952 called Dr. Samsi, directed by a woman called Ratna Asmara. When Umi tried to view the film, the 35mm print was severely decayed — unstable and even burning — but she could see Ratna’s name in the opening credits. It was enough to establish Ratna as the earliest known woman director credited in Indonesian cinema.
That moment became the spark. With limited resources, we digitised the film piece by piece — sometimes even manually intervening in the scanner. Technology was just a tool to get closer to Ratna’s story. For us — and for many archivists globally — working with unstable, incomplete materials is the norm. We're not chasing technical perfection. We’re tracing the lives and legacies hidden inside damaged or fragile reels.
The relationship between narrative and materiality is crucial. Restoration goes beyond addressing material obstacles — and decay can even be aesthetically desirable. In visual art or architecture, it is often accepted and appreciated. In cinema, however, decay can leave us with significant gaps, and sometimes only fragments of a work survive. How should we think about 'repairing' with the technologies available to us today?
MR In restoration, the fact that something is technically possible doesn’t automatically mean it should be done. Before making any intervention, we need to understand the film itself: its production history, the conditions in which it was made, and the techniques that were available at the time.
A good guideline is to start by looking at what would have been possible in photochemical restoration — and to pay attention to the limitations. Limitations are not just obstacles: they help shape decisions.
And the most important principle in our work remains the same: every step, every intervention must be reversible.
Every step, every intervention must be reversible.
LR We need to question this narrative of inevitable, linear technological progress and consider the other side of the passage of time — not progress, but decay. How do we look at decay? How do we deal with it? Like we deal with illness or ageing: do we hide it, reverse it, or erase it? I think it’s very important to understand the course of this regression.
The idea of digital cleaning and restoration today continues to adapt to different stages of AI development. Even cleaning an image using information from the frames before and after is a form of AI-generated activity. I maintain that technology is a tool to be adapted and hacked. The positive copy of Ratna Asmara’s Dr. Samsi was so decayed, with missing bits of sound, music, and dialogue. After digitisation, we began restoration by searching for clarity. Some image and sound negatives helped us reconstruct parts lost to decay. For elements still missing or degraded, we decided as a collective to try generative AI — not as a fix-all, but as a possibility. We treated AI tools as instruments of critical fabulation, narrating openly how and why we used them, and reflecting critically on the results and their acceptability.
We are creators who will die, and some of the materials we work with will die too. One form’s existence will eventually end. Engaging with the passage of time means learning what is possible now and in the future, while also confronting what was there before — and coming to terms with ideas of death and loss.
We treated AI tools as instruments of critical fabulation, narrating openly how and why we used them, and reflecting critically on the results and their acceptability.