While audiovisual preservation is meant to safeguard against forgetting films by narrowing gaps via the enlargement of collections, it is also true that there will always be images and information missing. Therefore, the imminence of this gap in the midst of preservation efforts cannot be neglected. Based on the experience of creating Passeio Público (2016), a film using archival footage from old Brazilian filmmakers (Alberto Botelho, Silvino Santos) and expanding this experience to the analysis of more significant film productions (Rithy Panh, Susana de Sousa Dias, Bill Morrison), this paper explores the possibility of making both the archives and its limitations and cracks accessible via film. Circling back to the notion of “layers of absence” (FRANÇA and ANDUEZA, 2018), we defend approaching the archives as being soaked in shortcomings, even when fully preserved. More than accessible, these are living archives, capable of defying memory rather than just filling it.

Nicholas Andueza
PhD student
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) / Université Paris 1 - Panthéon Sorbonne

A PhD student at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), under a joint supervision arrangement with Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne university. He researches biopolitics and representations of the body in archival film under the supervision of Consuelo Lins (Brazil) and Myriam Tsikounas (France). He holds a CAPES scholarship and is also a former recipient of the CNPq scholarship. Assistant editor at Eco-Pós, UFRJ’s scientific review. Collaborator at the DASartes review, in which he writes art critique articles. In the audiovisual field, he also works professionally as a cameraman and editor. Collaborator at the Cinémathèque of the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro for the project “Ouvindo Histórias: depoimentos sobre a Cinemateca do MAM”. He is also the director, along with FRANÇA Andréa, of Passeio Público (2016) and the author, along with FRANÇA Andréa, of the articles “Camadas de ausência e a produção de sentido através do cinema de arquivo”, Revista do Arquivo de São Paulo, n. 6, April 2018 and “O cinema de arquivo e a (des)pedagogia das sensibilidades: uma imersão em outros espaços e tempos”, Acervo: Revista do Arquivo Nacional, v.32, 2019, pp.64–77.

Lead image: Passeio Público (2016, directed by Andréa França and Nicholas Andueza)