Delegates of the 1957 FIAF Congress in Antibes. Photo: FIAF
Past FIAF Congresses
Please find below the list of all FIAF Congresses since 1939, along with Symposium themes, in reverse chronological order. The FIAF Secretariat is in the process of digitizing large amounts of historcial documents, including Congress documents. You can find a large selection of those already digitized HERE.
2024 Bangkok
Symposium theme: Film Archives in the Global South. Recordings of the Symposium are available HERE.
2023 Mexico City
Symposium theme: Women, Cinema, and Film Archives. video recordings of the Symposium are available HERE.
The Congress brochure (PDF file) is available HERE.
Photos of the Congress are available HERE, courtesy of Mikko Kuutti (please note that these images are provided for personal use only and should include the following credit: Photo courtesy of Mikko Kuutti). Footage of 2023 FIAF Congress Delegates on 35mm black-and-white film can be viewed HERE.
2022 Budapest
Symposium theme: The Visible Archive: Archiving, Preserving, Digitizing, and Sharing ‘Non-feature’ Film Collections. Video-recordings of the Symposium can be consulted HERE.
Photos of the Congress are available HERE, courtesy of the National Film Institute Hungary - Film Archive, and HERE, courtesy of Mikko Kuutti (please note that these images are provided for personal use only and should include the following credit: Photo courtesy of Mikko Kuutti).
The programme brochure of the Congress can be downloaded HERE (PDF file).
2021 Dhaka (cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic)
2020 Mexico City (cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic)
The Symposium, on the topic of "Prevention and Management of Natural and Human Disasters in Film Archives", took place online. A publication resulting from this symposium was published by UNAM in May 2020 and is available HERE (PDF file, 14Mb). Videos of the presentations can be consulted HERE.
2019 Lausanne
Symposium theme: Past and Future of Film Archives. Video-recordings of the Symposium can be consulted HERE.
Photos of the Congress are available HERE, courtesy of Mikko Kuutti (please note that these images are provided for personal use only and should include the following credit: Photo courtesy of Mikko Kuutti).
The full brochure of the Congress can be downloaded HERE (PDF file).
2018 Prague
Symposium theme: Sharing
2017 Los Angeles
Symposium theme: Spanish-language Cinema in Los Angeles
Photos of the Los Angeles Congress available HERE, courtesy of Mikko Kuutti (please note that these images are provided for personal use only and should include the following credit: Photo courtesy of Mikko Kuutti), and HERE, courtesy of A.M.P.A.S(please note that these images are provided for personal use only and should include the following credit: Photo courtesy of A.M.P.A.S).
2016 Bologna
Symposium theme: New Life for Cinema’s Past
Photos of the Bologna Congress HERE, and HERE, courtesy of Mikko Kuutti (please note that these images are provided for personal use only and should include the following credit: Photo courtesy of Mikko Kuutti).
2015 Sydney / Canberra
Symposium theme: Fairly Legal
Intellectual Property, Content Regulation and Film Archiving: Where Are We Heading?
Photos of the Sydney/Canberra Congress HERE.
The programme and documents of the Symposium can be found HERE.
2014 Skopje
Symposium theme: World War I – A Hundred Years On
Photos of the Skopje Congress HERE, and HERE, courtesy of Mikko Kuutti (please note that these images are provided for personal use only and should include the following credit: Photo courtesy of Mikko Kuutti).
2013 Barcelona
Symposium theme: Multiversions
Photos of the Barcelona Congress HERE.
2012 Beijing
Symposium theme: Animation around the World(Acquisition, preservation & restoration, access)
Photos of the Beijing Congress HERE.
2011 Pretoria
Symposium theme: Indigenous Film Collections in Africa and the World
2010 Oslo
Symposium theme: Digital Challenges and Digital Opportunities in Audiovisual Archiving
2009 Buenos Aires
Symposium theme: The Cinematheques in Search of Their New Audiences
2008 Paris
Symposium theme: Pandora’s Box: Film Archives and the Question of Rights
2007 Tokyo
Symposium theme: Archival Study of Short-lived Formats
2006 São Paulo
Symposium theme: The Future of Film Archives in a Digital Cinema World: Film Archives in Transition
2005 Ljubljana
Symposium theme: How Do We Visualise Culture? Representations of Culture in the Light of Ethnographic Film
2004 Hanoi
Symposium theme: No Time, No Money - Moving Image And Sound Archiving Under Emergency Conditions
2003 Stockholm - Helsinki
Symposium theme: Fading Colour Film - Preserve and Restore
2002 Seoul
Symposium theme: Asian Films: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
2001 Rabat
Symposium theme: Colonial Cinema: A Borrowed Film Heritage
2000 London
Symposium theme: The Last Nitrate Picture Show / The Futurology of Film Archiving
1999 Madrid
Symposium theme: A Century of Cinema / A Century in Cinema
1998 Prague
Symposium theme: Digitalisation of Archive Materials
1997 Cartagena
Symposium theme: Out of the Attic: Archiving Amateur Film
1996 Jerusalem
Symposium theme: The Rights Thing
1995 Los Angeles
Symposium theme: Learning from the History of FIAF / New Technologies for Preservation / the Great Challenges and Other
1994 Bologna
Symposium theme: A Philosophy of Audiovisual Archiving
1993 Mo I Rana
Symposium theme: Newsreels in Film Archives
1992 Montevideo
Symposium theme: Programming in Film Archives
1991 Athens
Symposium theme: The Place of Video in Film Archives / Film Archives and Independent Cinema
1990 Havana
Symposium theme: Film Archiving in Developing Countries / The Ibero-American Film of the 1930s, 40s and 50s
1989 Lisbon
Symposium theme: Rediscovering the Role of Film Archives: To Preserve and to Show
1988 Paris
Symposium theme: Le Cinéma français muet dans le monde: Influences réciproques
1987 Berlin (West)
Symposium theme: Archiving the Audiovisual Heritage (second Joint Technical Symposium, in collaboration with FIAT and IASA)
1986 Canberra
Symposium themes: Computer Applications in Film Archives / Technical and Ethical Problems of Film Restoration
1985 New York
Symposium theme: The Technicolor Process of Color Photography / Slapstick Symposium
1984 Vienna
Symposium theme: Film and Cinema in Central Europe (1895-1914) / The Importance of Non-Industrial Cinema within Our Cultural Heritage
1983 Stockholm
Symposium theme: Film Archiving in the 21st Century (first Joint Technical Symposium, in collaboration with FIAT)
1982 Oaxtepec
Symposium theme: El Cine olvidado de America Latina / Which Future for the Past? Keeping Cinema Alive
1981 Rapallo
Symposium themes: The Preservation of Color Films / L'Europe des téléphones blancs (1935-1940)
1980 Karlovy-Vary
Symposium themes: Post-War Animation (1945-1959) / Problem of Selection in Film Archives
1979 Lausanne
Symposium theme: Le Cinéma indépendant et d'avant-garde à la fin du muet
1978 Brighton
Symposium themes: Cinema: 1900-1906 / Film to Videotape and Videotape to Film: the Present and the Future
1977 Varna
Symposium theme: The Influence of Soviet Silent Cinema on World Cinema
1976 Mexico
Symposium theme: El Cine latinoamericano, realidad o ficción
1975 Torino
Symposium theme: Pastrone and Griffith
1974 Ottawa - Montreal
Symposium themes: Film Archives and Audiovisual Techniques / The Methodology of Film History
1973 Moscow
Symposium theme: S.M. Eisenstein & V.I. Pudovkin
1972 Bucharest
Symposium theme: The Methodology of the History of Cinema in Romania
1971 Wiesbaden
1970 Lyon
1969 New York
1968 London
1967 Berlin (DDR)
1966 Sofia
1965 Oslo
1964 Moscow
1963 Belgrade
1962 Rome
1961 Budapest
1960 Amsterdam
1959 Stockholm
1958 Prague
1957 Antibes
1956 Dubrovnik
1955 Warsaw
1954 Lausanne
1953 Vence
1952 Amsterdam
1951 Cambridge
1949 Rome
1948 Copenhagen
1946 Paris
1939 New York
