Film section of the National Archives of Brazil

dialogues on preservation with cinematheques in Brazil

Abstract

This article aims to present an analysis of the journey of creation, implementation, and development of the film section of the National Archives of Brazil (AN). From this perspective, it intends to focus on an aspect that marked the work experience of that section and served as a guide for the initiatives carried out in relation to the preservation and management of its film collection: the influence of the film treatment model employed in the activities carried out by cinematheques in Brazil — Cinemateca Brasileira, in São Paulo, and Cinemateca do MAM, in Rio de Janeiro — in implementing the management of the collection of films in the National Archives. The article will be based on the presentation of the journey of the film section of the National Archives, from that moment of modernization through which the institution was going, in the early 1980s, in two analytical movements. The first, systematizing the information collected by researching documents in the AN itself, focusing on the first years of implementation of the film section; the second, underlining the relations with the cinematheques in this process and its impacts on the constitution of the film section itself.