With only an estimated 20% of the world’s film heritage safeguarded, the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage is making its first move into cinema. Announced Monday at the Lumière Summit in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, ALIPH‘s new Program for the Safeguarding of Cinematographic and Audiovisual Heritage at Risk will bring together emergency intervention, preservation, physical infrastructure work and skills development, with France among its supporters. The Geneva-based foundation was established in 2017 through a public-private structure and counts the Trust, Dr.
Kaplan and the Leon Levy Foundation among its private partners. Over the past decade it has completed 640 projects in 65 countries, amounting to a cumulative outlay of $138 million — all in the field of endangered cultural heritage. The move marks ALIPH’s first engagement with the film sector.
Three pilot projects have been identified. In Ukraine, the Dovzhenko Centre in Kyiv – holding a collection of around 62,000 films and 300,000 reels – sustained a strike in June this year. The project will evaluate the condition of at-risk materials, find adequate storage conditions and move collections where required.
In Syria, prolonged conflict has severely degraded the National Film Archives’ storage and technical infrastructure; the program will work to protect the collection while restoring the institutional capacity to maintain it within Syria over the long term. In Indonesia, Sinematek Indonesia has run out of room for new acquisitions, while existing holdings are at risk from humidity and adverse environmental conditions; the project would improve temperature and humidity management, strengthen cataloguing and build staff expertise. An initial sum of $500,000 has been allocated for emergency projects this year.
ALIPH’s target is to raise $15 million to sustain the program through 2032. The program is also scoping potential projects in Cambodia, Lebanon, Myanmar, the Philippines and across the Pacific.
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