Media sustainability is a key concern for academic studies. The sector has benefited from various materialist and critical theoretical frameworks, and the screen industry is adopting specific regulations, policies, and practices to ensure proper environmental management in the media sector (Kääpä, Vaughan 2022). In contrast, inadequate attention has been given to the film heritage field.

Since the early 1990s has arisen an advanced conservation science (Nishimura 1993; Gamma Group 2000; Nissen et al. 2002) and the last decade has seen a growth in the building of new state-of-the-art film storage vaults and preservation centres across Europe (Venturini 2022). The growing amounts of digital objects and the market-driven obsolescence of carrier-based formats has obliged more and more attention to be paid to digitization, digital preservation standard, and digital access of both analog- and digital-born film materials (Edmondson 2016; Prentice, Gaustad 2017).

Furthermore, the literature has recently pointed out the stewardship of film collection in terms of sustainability of contents’ exhibition and circulation practices (Cherchi Usai 2020). Especially considering the new cinema history and new cultural sensitivities, the international archival community is focusing more on less-explored areas of archives (FIAF 2022). The emergence of new documentary phenomena has also outlined, in Italy, the flourishing of significant niches (industrial, amateur, family, military, scientific, local cinema, etc.) and led to new archival demands that are redefining the landscape of Italian film archives.