The Role of Film Archives in Creating Canons of Eastern European Cinema

Abstract

This article discusses the role of Eastern European film archives in creating national and regional cinematic canons. To examine how Eastern European archives contributed to the canonisation of films, it looks at the interests and tastes of the staff working in film archives—especially in the early phase of their existence—the programming of archive cinemas, and the politics of film digitisation. This choice is dictated by two principal considerations. The first is the author’s conviction that considering these processes offers valuable insight into canon formation over a longer period, including recent decades. The second is the opportunity to draw on the author’s first-hand knowledge of the operations of some Eastern European film archives and her interactions with colleagues working there, with whom she has discussed issues about canonisation over the years. The article argues that archives play a significant, although often unrecognised, role in the formation of Eastern European film canons.