We are very happy that the Filmoteca of the NationalAutonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) will host the congress of the International Federation of Film Archives in 2023. As you know, in 2020 we would be the hosts, but everything had to be canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, three years later and with an almost post-pandemic panorama, it is a great honor that the FIAF has once again looked and trusted Latin America to organize its annual congress and symposium with such a necessary theme as “Women, cinema and film archive”.
On behalf of our Rector, Dr. Enrique Graue and Dr. Rosa Beltrán, Coordinator of Cultural Affairs, I warmly welcome you. I am sure you will enjoy your stay in Mexico and your participation in this congress that will have the Casa del Lago UNAM as its main venue, located in the Bosque de Chapultepec, the largest green lung in Latin America.
The largest University of America welcomes you and wishes you a great stay in which we will learn and exchange knowledge and experiences.

Hugo Villa Smythe
General Director of Filmoteca UNAM

Since its founding in 1938, never before has the International Federation of Film Archives received such a high number of proposals to participate in a more than urgent dialogue and celebration on the legacy of women in the history of the film archive and their important work in building fairer and more dignified futures. The enthusiasm spread throughout the network of entities affiliated to this institution and even beyond, managing to summon archivists, filmmakers and people dedicated to research independently and in universities around the globe.

With the aim of opening the way for reflection on the imprint that women have left in the archival field, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, through the Filmoteca UNAM and the Ingmar Bergman Extraordinary Chair in Cinema and Theater, launched an invitation last November to be part of the Symposium “Women, Cinema and Film Archive”, to be held on 17 and 18 April 2023 at Casa del Lago UNAM. The main objective of this event is to open the discussion on the ways in which cinema and film archives of the 21st century can promote gender equity.

The result was overwhelming, as 110 proposals for individual presentations and pre-constituted panels were received. This great variety of papers proposed historical reviews that vindicate the role of women since the origin of film archives, the dissemination of important findings for the construction of a more equitable future, such as strategies for the use of metadata with a gender perspective and addressing the lack of representation of populations that have been left out of academic studies, as is the case of the LGBTIQ+ community.

Thus, after more than six hours of deliberation, the Scientific Committee, composed of women archivists, representatives of institutions affiliated to FIAF, have accepted 27 papers and two panels from 25 different countries, including latitudes as diverse as Mexico, Italy, Nigeria, Thailand, Germany, Ireland, Uruguay and South Korea, to name a few.

With sessions dedicated to the promotion of women in the preservation of film heritage, practices for gender equality in the archive, the history of women’s contributions to archival work, women pioneers and agents of change in preservation, the gender perspective in film collections and curatorial work, as well as the labor of women in cinema; the responsibility of this symposium is to propose a different type of archival journey, one that complements the narrative of the recovery with a compass radically different from that of the historical continuation that allows us to imagine more and more visibility and recognition practices.

Mariana Gándara, Executive Coordinator, Ingmar Bergman Chair on Film and Theater, UNAM (Coordinator)
Erika Arroyo, Communication, Ingmar Bergman Chair on Film and Theater, UNAM
Mariona Bruzzo, Head of the Film Archive, Filmoteca De Catalunya – ICEC
Karen Chan, Executive Director, Asian Film Archive
Mariana Domínguez Ceja, Institutional Liaison, Filmoteca UNAM
Maria Assunta Pimpinelli, Head of Film Collections, Fondazione
Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Cineteca Nazionale
Chalida Uabumrungjit, Director, Thai Film Archiv