Between Nostalgia and Utopia: A Conversation on the Legibility of Film Archives

How do the choices made by film archivists and restorers impact the way films are presented? How do digital copies of films relate to the “original” film copies? What are the pros and cons of celluloid in this era of digitization, from the perspective of film restoration and preservation? Interviewed by Peter Verstraten, Giovanna Fossati discusses the legibility of analog films, with their relatively long life expectancy versus the legibility of digital formats with their rapid obsolescence rate. The authors also discuss the flexibility of digital technology in approximating the look of obsolete film techniques (e.g. color in early cinema), the importance of keeping the analog film tradition alive, and the need for a long-term preservation strategy for digital films.