Association of European Film Archives and Cinematheques


The Association of European Film Archives and Cinematheques is an affiliation of 44 European national and regional film archives founded in 1991. Its role is to safeguard the European film heritage and make this rich audiovisual records collected and preserved by the various film archives accessible to the public. ACE is a regional branch of FIAF Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film / International Federation of Film Archives. ACE members are non-profit institutions committed to the FIAF Code of Ethics.

History

European film archives have been collecting, preserving, and restoring films and other materials relating to films since the 1930s. The collections range from pre-cinema apparatus to digital cinema files, all of which require specific methods, techniques and an extensive knowledge of film history for preservation.
In 1991, representatives of the most important European film archives came together to create LUMIERE, a pan-European film restoration project. It was the first large-scale film restoration project funded by the MEDIA I Programme of the European community. The LUMIERE project lasted between 1991 and 1996, during which more than 1000 film titles were preserved and restored, 700 films were re-discovered and identified and a Joint European Filmography was established.
ACE started in 1991 as the Association des Cinémathèques de la Communauté Européenne. After the end of the LUMIERE project in 1996, ACE began its active role in raising awareness of the cultural and economic value of European film heritage among policy makers and the audiovisual industry. Operating on the European level, ACE represents the interest of its members to the European Union. It works to support and improve the economic and legal conditions, as well as technical and scientific research for digitization and long-term film preservation.

ACE members

, British Film Institute, Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia - Cineteca Nazionale, Cinemateca Portuguesa, Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique/Koninklijk Belgisch Filmarchief, Cinémathèque suisse, CNC - Archives Françaises du Film / National Center of Cinematography and the moving image, Crnogorska Kinoteka, CulturArts Generalitat - Unidad de Audiovisual y Cinematografía, Det Danske Filminstitut, Deutsche Kinemathek - Museum für Film und Fernsehen, Deutsches Filminstitut, Eye Film Institute Netherlands, Filmarchiv Austria, Filmmuseum München, Filmoteca de Catalunya, Filmoteca Española, Filmoteca Vaticana /Vatican Film Library, Filmoteka Narodowa, Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna, Fondazione Cineteca Italiana, Gosfilmofond, Hrvatska kinoteka / Croatian Film Archive, Imperial War Museum, Irish Film Archive, Jugoslovenska Kinoteka, Kansallinnen Audiovisuaalinen Instituutti / National Audiovisual Institute, Kinoteka na Makedonija, La Cineteca del Friuli, La Cinémathèque da la Ville de Luxembourg, La Cinémathèque de Toulouse, Lichtspiel - Kinemathek Bern, La Cinémathèque Française, MaNDA - Hungarian National Digital Archive, Museo Nazionale del Cinema, , Nasjonalbiblioteket, Norsk filminstitutt / Norwegian Film Institute, Österreichisches Filmmuseum, Slovenski filmski arhiv, Slovenska Kinoteka, Swenska Filminstitutet / Swedish Film Institute, Tainiothiki tis Ellados - Greek Film Archive.

Protection of film heritage

The European Commission directly supports efforts to protect Europe's film heritage. The legal basis for action is Article 167 of the TFEU, which encourages member states to support the conservation and safeguard of the cultural heritage, including film heritage. The Film Heritage Recommendation 2005 invites the member states to systematically collect, catalogue, preserve and restore Europe's film heritage.

Projects

ACE has initiated several film heritage projects funded by the European Union: