Repatriating American film heritage or heritage hoarding? Digital opportunities for traditional film archive policy

Abstract

This article investigates the high-profile film repatriation projects between such organizations as the US Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Film and Sound Archive in Australia, and the New Zealand Film Archive. Heralded for bringing ‘home’ the so-called lost films, repatriation projects capture public imagination and prove vital in galvanizing the much needed press interest in the media preservation movement. National film archives, however, continue to pursue traditional modes of repatriating film material, spending thousands of dollars to ship nitrate film prints to underfunded and overwhelmed US media repositories, and perpetuating the dominance of the nation-state in preservation discourse. This article challenges the long-standing, celluloid-focused approach by providing an overview of media repatriation practice and policy, contemporary analysis of cultural property theory and law, and offering a pragmatic suggestion for digital repatriation models that can empower a greater number of regional participants.

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