Queer Memories from Closet to Cloud:

Rethinking Archival Care for Film and Video

Author

Dagmar Brunow

Abstract

Archives are not neutral repositories but epistemic infrastructures through which history, memory, and belonging are produced. Yet queer lives remain unevenly recognised within film and video collections. This article focuses on the ethical and political implications of digitising and circulating queer audiovisual heritage, particularly under European copyright regimes and in the context of artificial intelligence and generative AI trained on cultural heritage materials. Digitisation and online visibility can be both enabling and harmful. The article demonstrates how archival decisions around access, metadata, and description shape recognition, legibility, and vulnerability. Practices such as tagging, the use of metadata, and retrodigitalisation raise questions about consent, retrospective exposure, and the temporal disjunctions produced when past materials circulate in contemporary digital contexts. We therefore need to understand archival workflows as sites where care, power, and responsibility are negotiated. The article argues for an ethics of care for queer audiovisual heritage on digital platforms. Such an approach shifts attention away from archival objects towards relational processes, emphasising accountability to donors, communities, and future users. The article identifies micro archives as key sites of care-based knowledge. Occasionally community-driven and always specialised, these archives have developed practices attuned to trust, situated ethics, and the management of vulnerability. At the same time, the growing collaboration between micro-archives and national heritage institutions introduces new tensions around the translation of care into larger institutional frameworks. For its examples, the article draws on long-term collaborations with the Swedish National Film Archives, the Swedish Archive for Queer Moving Images, bildwechsel in Hamburg, and the Lesbian Home Movie Project in Maine. It is structured in three parts: an analysis of queer heritage recognition in Swedish national film archives, case studies of care practices in micro archives, and a discussion of what is gained and lost when care-driven archival practices move across institutional scales.

Keywords

archive, curation, digitisation, audiovisual heritage, care, ethics, AI, metadata, queer, LGBT+, Lesbian Home Project, bildwechsel, Swedish Archive for Queer Moving Images, Swedish Film Institute

Curating Digital Film Archival Collections

Archives are the foundation from which history is written, but where are queer lives in film and video archives and how can we find them? Or rather: how are queer lives constructed via archival practices of collection, cataloguing and offering access via digital online platforms? And what are the risks and challenges of digitisation and online circulation in times of AI and GenAI?

European copyright legislation does not automatically allow free access or open reuse for digitised film and video. Making collections available online affects vulnerable groups because visibility can be both empowering and risky, exposing individuals to hate speech or other forms of violence. For example: What should be done with a blurry 1980s amateur video of a party in a lesbian bar? How do archivists handle open access around home movie footage of topless women at a feminist music festival in the 1970s? Making such materials available online not only raises ethical questions but also introduces challenges around metadata: whether to tag individuals in the footage, how to handle outdated or missing search terms, and how to prevent harmful misinterpretations. What would be the effect for individuals when it comes to retrospective entry and retrodigitalisation? This means that archivists need to think carefully about the consequences of their decisions. Such reflection is especially urgent today in times of rapid digitisation, digital tools reshaping research, and generative AI being trained on cultural heritage material, often without permission (Oruc 2025). Archives have been increasingly using AI for the purpose of metadata enhancement. Methods such as facial recognition and speaker identification, however, can increase the vulnerability of queer individuals. Because of these challenges, I argue that we need an ethics of care around queer audiovisual heritage on digital online platforms. Scholars in critical archival studies have emphasised the need to develop robust archival ethics governing the creation of access to digitised collections (Caswell and Cifor 2016, 2019; Agostinho 2021).

One place to look for guidance is what I call “micro archives”.¹ These are specialised archives that may be grassroots or community-driven, or sometimes state-supported, but are dedicated to specific kinds of collections, such as queer or experimental film and video. Their ethics of care offers important lessons for larger heritage organisations. And indeed, in recent years, national archives and museums have increasingly turned to micro archives to address gaps and absences in their own collections. Yet this trend brings new challenges. Micro archives might need to collaborate with national heritage institutions to grant a sustainable preservation of their archival holdings, countering the ongoing decay of film reels or videotapes. However, as Erin Baucom (2018, 69) cautions, placing “LGBTQ materials in traditional archives places the onus on the archivists who work there to make the materials discoverable.” As Lynne Kirste (2007) has similarly observed, national archives may not prioritise the preservation of queer audiovisual heritage, and archival staff may lack the cultural knowledge necessary to identify, contextualise, and adequately support such materials. How can micro archives make sure that their ethics of care is not lost in collaboration? How can archives honour the trust placed in the micro archives by LGBTQI+ individuals who donated their material in the hope of finding a safe haven for their private collections? And how will the care-based practices developed by micro archives be recognised and valued within major heritage organisations in a sustainable manner – not only today, or at the time of a handover, but also in the future?

I will present some of the cases I have collaborated on in previous years: The Swedish National Film Archives, the Swedish Archive for Queer Moving Images, bildwechsel in Hamburg, and the Lesbian Home Movie Project in Maine. Working with these projects over many years has shaped my understanding of how archives, the curation of audiovisual heritage, and cultural memory are interconnected (Brunow 2025; 2020). Their practices, and their critical awareness of the archive’s role and its power relations, have inspired me to see archival workflows as acts of care. This archival practice of care includes collecting, cataloguing, managing metadata, preserving and restoring materials, and curating online access. At each step, decisions are made that influence how audiovisual memory is shaped. These choices are always tied to recognition: whose stories are acknowledged, by whom, and on what terms? Whose lives and desires are made visible? Which bodies are rendered legible?

This article has three parts. First, I look at the way national film archives in Sweden recognise and acknowledge queer audiovisual heritage. In the second, I will present three examples of archival care practice from micro-archives. And finally, I will discuss how these smaller and bigger archives could collaborate – and what will be gained, what will be lost.

Recognising Queer Audiovisual Heritage

First of all, a few words on terminology. I use the term ‘queer’ in the double sense of the concept of queer: on the one hand as an umbrella term for LGBTIQ+ related cinema, and on the other hand as a strategy of ‘queering’ by foregrounding the norms and power relations embedded in social structures.

‘Queer cinema’ is a term which can be used to refer to films by, about and for those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, or situate themselves outside the heterosexual norm. Neither a genre nor an essence, queer cinema is not limited to themes, plot lines, or characters. Instead, I understand it in the sense of cinema culture, which includes its industrial context of production, distribution, and exhibition, as well as the social relations that make it happen.

Recognising ‘queer audiovisual heritage’ can be conceptualised along several lines (Kirste 2007, Thompson 2015, Brunow 2018, Juhasz 2021): first, the inclusion of LGBTIQ+ lives based on the idea of making visible what was once invisible. This is a reparative gesture trying to ‘re-right’ previous injustice, but it is also a gesture which risks stabilising non-normative sexualities as ‘the Other’. Secondly, there is the ambition to collect, archive, preserve, and activate queer cinema, for instance, via dedicated archival programs. Third, concepts such as ‘queer reading’ or ‘queer worldmaking’ are often used to describe brief, fleeting moments that happen almost anywhere: in archives, but, more often, elsewhere.² A shortcut for all three aspects, the notion of ‘queer audiovisual heritage’ is based on the notion of heritage not as given, but as a culture-led process of meaning-making and a result of negotiations between different stakeholders.

I think of an archival ethics of care through Joan Tronto’s (2015) idea of “caring with” rather than “caring for,” which can sometimes slip into a paternalistic approach. “Caring with” highlights relationships, blurring the line between caregiver and cared-for, and treats care as part of everyday archival work rather than a pause in professional life. This resonates with the Care Collective’s (2020, 19) concept of “care-in-practice”, where care is central to the workflow itself. I use the term “archival ethics of care” to set it apart from general archival ethics, as described in the Code of Ethics for Archivists. Thinking about archives this way also moves away from the familiar “care of collections” idea common in museums. Whereas collection care assumes holdings exist as fixed objects, an ethics of care focuses on relationships and processes: how records are created, catalogued, accessed, and curated, rather than on the objects alone. Advocating for an archival ethics of care, Michelle Caswell and Marika Cifor suggest understanding digitisation not merely as a singular event, but “as part of a larger series of steps to developing an ongoing ethical relationship between records’ creators, subjects, users and communities” (Caswell/Cifor 2019, 160). The notion of “care-in-practice” encapsulates this relational approach.

I have argued that archivists must carefully navigate what Johanna Schaffer calls the “ambivalence of visibility” as increased visibility can both empower and endanger vulnerable groups (Schaffer 2008). This means reflecting on the consequences of different archival practices, such as “naming” through metadata, “shaming” by the way access is curated online, and “framing” through contextualization (Brunow 2018). Navigating visibility does not just mean to practice care around the media representation of digitised footage on online platforms. It also requires an ethics of care around metadata. Metadata, the data about data, can be divided into three broad categories: administrative metadata, which supports the management and administration of collections and information resources; structural metadata, which describes how the components of a resource relate to one another; and descriptive metadata, which identifies and characterises the information resources themselves (Dahlgren et al 2020, 6). Descriptive metadata for images in cultural heritage collections is created in three main ways: by professional cataloguers within the institution, through public crowdsourcing initiatives, or via automated systems that increasingly rely on machine-learning techniques (Dahlgren et al 2020, 7). Just like other archival acts, such as collection, selection, or restoration, the process of cataloguing with the choice of search terms and contextualisation via accompanying texts, is an act of recognition and remembrance. Yet, metadata also enables the migration and reuse of data across platforms (Allison-Cassin and Seeman 2022). This makes metadata an important factor in processes of media transformation across platforms, into different contexts, from analogue catalogue information to digital databases. This is why metadata is related to cultural memory. It informs it, contributes to it, and helps to keep memories in circulation. By determining whose lives are deemed worthy of preservation, metadata makes bodies legible. Such visibility has repercussions for digital methods, for instance, data visualisation. What has not been collected, categorised and catalogued, cannot be found by digital tools, e.g. in data harvesting. Digital methods, AI, and generative AI, build on such epistemic imbalances, often reinforcing social inequalities while presenting their findings as empirical truths. From a queer perspective, such positivism with its insistence on evidence, on what is visible and sayable, is deeply problematic. It privileges the linguistic and the classifiable, and neglects what José Esteban Muñoz (2009) has characterised as the subversive, evasive quality of queerness.

Swedish Queer Audiovisual Heritage

Sweden leads Scandinavia in recognising queer audiovisual heritage. While film archives, like other heritage institutions, mediate power, citizenship, and belonging, queer heritage is still largely overlooked. Across the Nordic countries, no archival policies explicitly address LGBTIQ plus related materials, and diversity initiatives tend to focus on gender and ethnicity rather than sexuality. In contrast, Swedish institutions such as the Swedish Film Institute and the National Library, KB, have taken timid steps to acknowledge queer audiovisual heritage, and Sweden is home to the region’s first archive dedicated to queer moving images, the Swedish Archive for Queer Moving Images, SAQMI.

The Swedish Film Institute’s Archival Film Collections are among the oldest national film archives in Europe, its roots dating back to the Swedish Film Society (Svenska Filmsamfundet) in 1933. Any film that receives production support from the Swedish Film Institute must also be deposited in the archive. This creates gaps in the collection, particularly for independently produced films, works without cinema distribution, and formats beyond analogue film, such as video. These kinds of works and formats, meanwhile, are more often found in micro-archives. In its policy documents detailing which films should be prioritised for digitisation, the Swedish Film Institute has explicitly acknowledged works by women and national minorities, but not the categories LGBTQI+ or queer. However, in one policy document, it is acknowledged that the country’s cinematic history has been predominantly white, patriarchal, and heteronormative (Svenska Filminstitutet 2016). Still, there have been attempts to bring queer cinema out of the shadows and to highlight some Swedish classics as part of a queer audiovisual heritage. One example is the distribution project Queera klassiker (“Queer Classics”), which arose from the rising demand at international film festivals for digitally restored queer films.

Another way to create queer audiovisual heritage in Sweden has been the online video platform Filmarkivet.se, run by the Swedish Film Institute and the National Library of Sweden. Launched in 2011, it is about to be replaced by an updated platform with a streaming service in 2026. About ten years ago, they introduced the theme “Queer” on the platform (Brunow 2018). Studying this case highlights the difficulties of making LGBTQI lives visible in digital archival collections. Meanwhile, an intersectional perspective that would include Queer Sámi histories is still missing in national film archives. These have, however, been highlighted by SAQMI - Swedish Archive for Queer Moving Images.

Archival Care Practice in Micro-Archives: SAQMI - Swedish Archive for Queer Moving Images

Founded in 2017 by artist, curator, and producer Anna Linder, SAQMI collects works often overlooked by national archives due to their format (video, Super 8), lack of cinema distribution, or independent funding (Linder and Persson 2017). Its mission is to both preserve and keep these films alive through accessibility and circulation. Rather than storing films on shelves, SAQMI curates regular screenings, often in collaboration with festivals or arts organisations, to create temporary queer spaces of encounter and community. Firmly rooted in the queer scene, SAQMI positions itself not just as a gatekeeper of heritage but as a source of joy, pleasure, and care. Its archival ethics centre on artists’ needs, affordable access, and safe, welcoming spaces. Curation also sustains the archive financially and supports artists through compensation. Alongside commissioned programs, SAQMI runs its own initiatives such as Nightfall with filmmaker talks and roundtables as well as Cherry Pic, a “crash course in Swedish queer moving images” that highlights local gems and national classics.³

Care in the archive is also the work that goes into contextualisation. One example would be the Argentinian filmmaker Susana Blaustein Muñoz, who lived in Sweden during the 1970s. She achieved international recognition in 1985 when her documentary The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo (Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, 1985, Susana Blaustein Muñoz and Lourdes Portillo) earned an Academy Award nomination. SAQMI holds the autobiographical 25-minute diary film Susana (1980, Blaustein Muñoz) in its collections. The website frames the importance of the film as “one of the first Swedish lesbian stories to be portrayed in moving images – although Susana is not originally from Sweden, she lived in Stockholm for a while in the late 1970s – and was hanging out in circles involved with Lesbisk front (Lesbian Front).”⁴ The website details how the film blends cinéma vérité into a collage of stills, amateur footage, and animations that explore the cultural context in which female, sexual, and ethnic identities take shape. As with many of her works, the film was ultimately censored by the Argentine state. To accompany the Susana relaunch, SAQMI produced a podcast with Susana Blaustein Muñoz, available on its website via video-on-demand, with the €3.50 fee going directly to the filmmaker.

In 2023, SAQMI launched a participatory online project highlighting regional queer memory in Gothenburg with a crowd-sourced timeline featuring over 130 moving images made in and around the city. The timeline covers a wide range of genres and formats, from experimental works to amateur films, from 35mm to VHS. Users can upload links, stills, production details, and tags, while SAQMI archivists review and edit submissions behind the scenes. This approach redefines the archivist’s role, inviting the public to help build the archive. Despite such activity, SAQMI’s long-term survival remains uncertain. Without stable state funding, it relies on short-term project support, temporary staff, and volunteer labour. Such conditions heighten the risk of what Özge Çelikaslan calls “archival burnout” (Çelikaslan 2024). To counter this, SAQMI collaborates with other queer archival initiatives, creating networks that are crucial for safeguarding Scandinavian queer audiovisual memory.

Collecting as a Practice of Care: The Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP)

Few archives can match the level of care and documentation provided by the Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP). The Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP) began in 2008 when New York writer and archivist Sharon Thompson found filmmaker Ruth Storm’s (1888–1981) home movies in a Maine cabin. Formally established a year later with Thompson, critic B. Ruby Rich, and Chicago Video Data Bank founder Kate Horsfield, the project preserves audiovisual traces of lesbian everyday life. Today, it holds over 500 films from across the U.S. Access depends on donor agreements, some films are on-site only, others partly online, with restrictions clearly noted (e.g., “Donor notification required” or “DVD #6 cannot be shown at the present time”). Selected clips are available on the LHMP website and Vimeo. At the LHMP, contextualization begins early: during the collection process itself. Care involves close collaboration with donors, filmmakers, and rightsholders, treating expertise as shared rather than archivist-owned. Archiving thus becomes a collaborative act of knowledge-making, shaped by both preservers and contributors. In this way, the LHMP shows how careful contextualization can start from the very first stage of collection.

The Caren McCourtney collection at the Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP) exemplifies how a practice of care shapes acquisition. McCourtney’s Super 8 films, shot from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s, were copied to VHS in 2004 but became mixed out of order. When she donated the tape in 2010, she collaborated with LHMP through interviews and review sessions to restore the films’ original sequence. A reconstructed version was released on Vimeo in 2017, while other versions (including one revised by her partner Gabrielle in 2018) remain in the archive. This case shows how LHMP involves filmmakers and donors in shaping the archive and how documenting these processes embodies its ethics of care and transparency. It is an act of archival recognition shared among filmmaker, family, and archivist.

The case also shows how much the format matters. This is why video is such a unique source, as it contains traces that we would not find on analogue footage. For queer filmmakers, home movies on film were risky: developing the reels in labs risked exposure to authorities. As LHMP’s Sharon Thompson describes, some lesbians, like Caren McCourtney in the 1970s, still dared to film intimate moments despite the danger:

Human eyes were involved in that: not just lab techs’ eyes, bad enough, but, everyone feared, police and the FBI. The few lesbians who chanced that shot very carefully. Caren McCourtney did film a kiss, and maybe more (maybe a threesome?) The room was very dark. Hard to tell for sure. But she was near singularly bad ass (Thompson 2024).

The introduction of home video reduced that risk as video did not require lab processing. And video is also the focus of our next example.

Not-sharing is Caring: bildwechsel

Guided by an ethic of mutual knowledge exchange, the feminist organisation bildwechsel sees itself as a network of visual artists rather than a service provider. Based in Hamburg, with satellites in other European cities, bildwechsel was founded in 1979 within West Germany’s political video movement of the 1970s and 1980s, known for its workshops, alternative modes of production and exhibition as well as its independent distribution network (Brunow 2012). bildwechsel’s goal was never just to produce videos, but to give women access to technology, materials, and expertise they could not afford individually. In its early years, this included video recorders, a photo lab, illustrated books, and exhibition catalogues. All archival materials have been received directly from the filmmakers and include performance recordings, documentaries, home movies, video diaries, video essays, fiction films, and video art. Although the collection originally consisted solely of videotapes, since 1993, original formats have also been preserved, encompassing a wide range of video systems as well as 16 mm film, Super-8, and slide shows. Nevertheless, the majority of the 8,000 titles in the video collection survive only on ageing videotape.

At bildwechsel, the idea of care stems both from responsibility toward copyright holders and from the collective’s self-image. Its activists see themselves not as service providers but as artists or creatives who aim to live not by caring for but caring with. As Joan Tronto distinguishes, caring with rejects paternalism: it treats care as relational rather than hierarchical, an integral part of everyday life rather than an interruption of it (Tronto 2015). This aligns with the Care Collective’s idea of care-in-practice, which bildwechsel embodies (Care Collective 2020). Unlike the museum notion of “collection care,” which treats objects as pre-existing entities, ethical care-in-practice focuses on process: on how materials come into being through collecting, cataloguing, and designing access. In bildwechsel’s model, archivists, users, and filmmakers collaborate as equals in producing archival knowledge. At a moment when “care” has become a buzzword in film and media studies, bildwechsel offers a concrete example of how care-in-practice can be used productively.

Bildwechsel’ archival care differs from many micro-archives because their ruling principle is that remaining unmarked can protect people. There are no tags designated to sexual or gender identity. Also, bildwechsel strictly follows GDPR guidelines, and until now, their catalogues are not publicly accessible – neither online nor on location. To avoid the risks of corporate platforms and data commodification, bildwechsel uses its own server for all data and metadata, limiting online exposure.

An ethic of care also shapes how access to the collections is managed: videos are published online only when the filmmakers have given their consent and when no copyrights or personal rights are violated. bildwechsel also respects the integrity of the individuals portrayed in the recordings. If there is even the slightest doubt that a person shown would not agree to public distribution or exhibition, the video remains available for on-site viewing only. As a result, only a small portion of digitised videos is exhibited online in their own platform video castle, designed by bildwechsel-founder durbahn. Inspirations for the interface design were both Tove Jansson’s moomin house and the early computer game “Mortville Manor”. Refraining from today’s dominant tile design, the castle becomes a digital cabinet of curiosities (Wunderkammer) which allows for surprising discoveries from videos across the genres to video interviews with archivists (e.g. Anna Linder of SAQMI, Sharon Thompson of the LHMP) and filmmakers (e.g. Ursula Pürrer). One cannot search for the digitised videos in the video castle: they can only be found when the user moves around the video castle, for instance, its different gallery floors, its park with its viewing spaces, or the vault with digitised documents. It is a decidedly decelerated approach that counteracts the content overload of most other video portals. I regard this way of ‘slow archiving’ as a form of care. Undermining consumer culture’s demands of instant availability and immediate consumption, it allows us to reflect on the idea that queer cinema culture is not just about the ‘product’ or about ‘content’, but rather a process and a cultural space. The video ‘castle’ refers to the far more extensive collections on the premises of bildwechsel. While it cannot replace IRL spaces of exhibition, in which mutual exchange, but also joy and desire can be enacted, it can highlight their absence and their importance.

Reflecting on the ambivalence of visibility has also influenced the archival research project “Visual History of LGBTIQ+ in Austria and Beyond” in Austria, run by Katharina Müller from the Filmmuseum Wien and the University of Vienna. Initially, her idea was to collect material from micro-archives run by video collectives, LGBTIQ+ groups and private collectors. As someone working for the Filmmuseum, where she is the head of research, she could easily have included this material in the Filmmuseum’s collections, granting it long-term storage. However, she has become more hesitant because of the vulnerability, especially in the current political situation in Austria:

Because, of course, we are talking about real people, real lives in a political climate that is currently rather tense, even strongly repressive and fascistic. And when something is archived, under what terms? Because the moment you put a label on it, you make it vulnerable. And that brings us back to Nazi history, for example, around 1933: the looting of the Magnus Hirschfeld archives. The moment I collect something centrally and label it gay, lesbian, trans, LGBTIQ, I am of course also exposing it to danger. That is why I refuse to put it in large collections, databases or online exhibitions. I have really put this back into the hands of the community as community material, so that we can work together to consider multiple and diverse ways of archiving or extending this history (Fröhlich 2025).

Both Müller and bildwechsel understand non-sharing as an act of care, rethinking the relation between recognition and visibility: if recognition from a state archive comes at the cost of integrity, at the price of an increased vulnerability, it might not be worth it. Also, recognition from a state archive might not be the recognition queer audiovisual heritage needs. Maybe what is needed is a process of activating the archive that creates transnational connections and opens future possibilities.

Lost in Collaboration? Care & Sustainability in Archival Collaborations

This overview shows how each of the projects navigates the ambivalence of visibility in different ways. bildwechsel leaves interpretation to viewers (no catalogue, no tagging, no naming), while the LHMP promotes visibility but respects donors’ rights and wishes. SAQMI is currently reviewing cataloguing practices, reflecting on the interoperability of metadata with other Swedish library and information systems. Another aspect of archival care is the longstanding collaboration between archives and their donors. bildwechsel, for instance, continues to contact donors or people featured in footage to confirm whether a screening is acceptable. Also, the Lesbian Home Movie Project spends a lot of invisible archival labour seeking permissions. This workload became massive ahead of a collaboration with the Harvard Film Archive, with the ambition of granting sustainable preservation and access to its collections (Thompson 2024). Before transferring digital files, LHMP archivists contacted each donor again to ensure the partnership felt right to them. The LHMP case illustrates how much expertise and ethical insight the archive and museum sectors often overlook. While we need sustainable collaborations involving micro-archives, we need to navigate their risks of giving up their autonomy, of compromising their ethical considerations and of losing the trust conveyed to them by their communities.

Understanding care as a relational concept is crucial. In micro-archives, I have observed close, dialogical relationships between archivists and creators or donors throughout collection, acquisition, cataloguing, and access. In contrast, such relationships are rare in national archives, where the scale of collections, especially copyright deposits, makes relational care difficult. These differences in ‘care-in-practice’ create challenges for collaboration between micro and national archives, which is increasingly necessary for resource support, such as storage, restoration, digitisation, and audience outreach. While such partnerships are vital for preserving audiovisual heritage, they risk undermining the relational care that defines micro-archives. Mapping care-in-practice in these contexts offers insight into what might be lost when smaller archives rely on larger institutions.

Conclusion

We are lacking sustainable archival efforts to highlight queer film culture. As we have seen, most national archives have not developed lasting strategies for collecting, preserving, or curating queer audiovisual heritage. While Scandinavian countries are internationally regarded as queer-friendly and progressive in advancing LGBTIQ+ rights, the histories and legacies of queer cinema cultures in the region have been acknowledged only inconsistently, if at all. While research on archival ethics of care in audiovisual archives is still emerging, more attention is needed to archival labour, colonial legacies, longevity, and sustainability.

Given the current political landscape globally, the rare diversity initiatives within national audiovisual archives are disappearing across Eastern Europe and in the US due to political pressure. The unique historical window for the recognition of queer lives that was opened about a decade ago will be shut again. The current (2025) rise of hate crimes and a rising number of attacks against pride flags, threats against pride parades, and social media campaigns against drag queen story hours for children are symptoms of an increased vulnerability of queer lives, showing even more the need to investigate the archive for future possibilities. At the same time, queer lives in the Nordic countries have never been as visible as now, and these can no longer be erased. Queer visibility can be criminalised and can be censored by the state, but queer audiovisual memory can no longer return into the closet. The films will continue to circulate, via international film festivals, the global queer film circuit, the arts context, or via informal distribution networks. Queer audiovisual memory will happen – here and elsewhere – not least via archival practice.

Dagmar Brunow
Linnaeus University
dagmar.brunow@lnu.se

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council as part of the research project “The Lost Heritage: Improving Collaborations between Digital Film Archives” (Vetenskapsrådet 2020-02250)

Bio

Dagmar Brunow is professor of film studies at Linnaeus University (Sweden). Her research centres on archives, cultural memory, film historiography, experimental filmmaking and video culture, feminist and queer cinema, and screenwriting as transmediation. She is the author of Remediating Transcultural Memory: Documentary Filmmaking as Archival Intervention (de Gruyter, 2015), co-editor of Queer Cinema (with Simon Dickel, 2018), and co-editor of the Frauen und Film special issue “Archive” (with Katharina Müller, 2024). Her research projects “The Lost Heritage: Improving Collaborations between Digital Film Archives” (2021-2024) and “The Cultural Heritage of Moving Images” (2016-2018) have been funded by the Swedish Research Council.

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Schaffer, Johanna. 2008. Ambivalenzen der Sichtbarkeit. Über die visuellen Strukturen der Anerkennung. Bielefeld.

Svenska Filminstitutet. 2016. Policy of the Digitization Selection Committee. Accessed December 12, 2018. www.filminstitutet.se/globalassets/2.-fa-kunskap-om-film/digitalafilmarvet/diverse-bilder/policy-of-the-digitization-selection-committee.pdf.

Thompson, Sharon. 2024. ”LHMP goes to Harvard.” Lesbian Home Movie Project, blog entry February 10, 2024. Accessed November 4, 2025. https://jeg.ttc.mybluehost.me/blog/.

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Tronto, Joan C. 2015. Who Cares?: How to Reshape a Democratic Politics. Ithaca NY. 

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Links

Bildwechsel: https://bildwechsel.org/

Bildwechsel’s video castle: https://durbahn.net/videoschloss/

The Swedish Archive for Queer Moving Images (SAQMI): https://saqmi.se/

The Lesbian Home Movie Project: https://lesbianhomemovieproject.org/

Suggested citation

Brunow, Dagmar. 2025. “From Closet to Cloud: Rethinking Archival Care for Queer Film and Video”. Queer Memories (ed. Katja Čičigoj and Jasmina Šepetavc). Special issue of Apparatus. Film, Media and Digital Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe 21. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17892/app.2025.00021.415.

URL: http://www.apparatusjournal.net/

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