A View from the North

This conversation with Giovanna Fossati, former chief curator of Eye Filmmuseum and now Professor of Media Heritage, Technology and Culture at the University of Utrecht, runs the gamut of themes explored in this volume: the central question of film and restitution, the management of contested or “shared” film heritage, and transnational archival cooperation and North–South alliances in the field of film restoration and preservation. Fossati's perspective on the challenges facing global audiovisual archiving is deliberately and self-critically framed as an institutional view from the Global North. In her forthright responses, informed by many years of firsthand experience, she raises fundamental questions about the possibilities and limitations of institutional reform “from within.”