In this brief introduction, I would like to explain why I think the theorization proposed in this chapter is still relevant a decade after it was originally formulated and why I decided to add a new “film as performance” framework (Fossati, 2012a).

Over the last decade, the interest in film archives has increased significantly. Due to the growing number of digitization projects, film archives have increased their (online) visibility, which has made them interesting partners for online services offering audiovisual content. At the same time, the recurrent dialogue between archivists and scholars has stimulated academic interest. New gatherings are being organized which target both archivists and scholars (e.g. the annual Eye International Conference, The Nitrate Picture Show at the George Eastman Museum, the International Conference on Colour in Film at BFI, Toutes les memoires du monde at Cinémathèque Française), and previously existing festivals and gatherings focusing on archival films are becoming more and more popular among scholars and archivists alike (e.g. the Cinema Ritrovato, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, the Orphan Film Symposium, To Save and Project: The MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation, Zoom Arrière at the Cinémathèque de Toulouse, the AMIA Conference).

As mentioned in the new Introduction to Chapter One, numerous books and journal essays by scholars and archivists have been released which reflect on film archival practice. Additionally, a growing number of research projects have brought together scholars and archivists in an effort to gain more insight into film collections using new technologies. Some of these projects, such as the FilmColors and FILMIC projects, have already been mentioned in Chapter One; others, such as the Media Ecology Project and the Sensory Moving Image Archive project, will be briefly discussed in the update to the Conclusions.

However, there is still room for improvement. Because, while the dialogue between film archivists and scholars has certainly increased and is being recognized as valuable to both fields, the shared vocabulary and conceptual tools need to be further refined and supported. As it stands, the interaction between researchers and conservators within fine art disciplines is still significantly closer than in film.