ALIPH Launches Its First Film Heritage Program, Targeting Archives in Ukraine, Syria and Indonesia
Only 20% of the world's film heritage is safeguarded, according to the Geneva-based foundation ALIPH, which announced its first program dedicated to cinema and audiovisual archives on Monday at the Lumière Summit in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France (Variety).
The Program for the Safeguarding of Cinematographic and Audiovisual Heritage at Risk begins with three pilot projects in Ukraine, Syria and Indonesia, combining emergency intervention, preservation, physical infrastructure work and skills development. France is among the program's supporters.
In Kyiv, the Dovzhenko Centre holds roughly 62,000 films and 300,000 reels and sustained a strike in June 2026. The Ukraine pilot will evaluate the condition of at-risk materials, find adequate storage and move collections where required. In Syria, years of conflict have severely degraded the National Film Archives' storage and technical infrastructure; the program aims to protect the collection while rebuilding institutional capacity inside the country. In Indonesia, Sinematek Indonesia has run out of room for new acquisitions, and its existing holdings face damage from humidity and adverse environmental conditions. That project will improve temperature and humidity management, strengthen cataloguing and build staff expertise.
ALIPH — the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage, a name adopted for its 10th anniversary — was established in 2017 through a public-private structure. Over the past decade it has completed 640 projects in 65 countries, with a cumulative outlay of $138 million in endangered cultural heritage. Private partners include the Getty Trust, Dr. Thomas S. Kaplan and the Leon Levy Foundation. The film heritage program marks ALIPH's first engagement with the film sector.
An initial $500,000 has been allocated for emergency film heritage projects in 2026. The foundation's target is to raise $15 million to sustain the program through 2032. Further projects are being scoped in Cambodia, Lebanon, Myanmar, the Philippines and across the Pacific.
What gives the announcement its weight is the gap between the scale of the problem and the resources typically directed at it. Film archives are vulnerable to war, climate, neglect and simple decay — acetate stock breaks down, colour fades, and a single power failure in a poorly ventilated vault can destroy irreplaceable material. The three pilots cover three very different threats: active conflict in Ukraine, post-conflict institutional collapse in Syria, and environmental pressure in Indonesia.
ALIPH's track record in cultural heritage protection spans monuments, museums and archaeological sites. Whether that experience translates to the specific demands of film preservation — cold storage, cataloguing standards, the handling of flammable nitrate stock — will depend on the specialists it brings in and the local institutions it works alongside. The $15 million target, spread across multiple countries over six years, is modest measured against the need. But it is a first committed line of funding for archives that have rarely had one.
