Canadian film archives are facing ongoing challenges as aging collections, obsolete formats, and a gradual loss of technical expertise complicate efforts to safeguard the country’s audiovisual heritage. Digitization projects at institutions such as Library and Archives Canada and the Cinémathèque Québécoise are improving access, but experts note that digital copies cannot fully replace physical preservation. “If you don’t take care of the actual objects on which the audiovisual contents are recorded, you won’t have anything to work with in the future,” said University of Montréal Professor Louis Pelletier. The Globe and Mailreports that archivist training continues at some postsecondary institutions, like the University of Toronto, but limited job opportunities and constrained resources have made sustaining long-term preservation capacity difficult.
