Film Archive

Preserving the Finnish film culture since 1957.

Eight decades of film archiving

In our collections and archive work, Finnish Arts and Culture Agency (Kuvi) ensures that domestic and foreign films and other audiovisual materials deposited with the Agency are properly organized and catalogued.

The law requires that filmmakers and producers deposit the original image and sound negatives of film material produced in Finland, along with the corresponding release prints and copies of related advertising and publicity material, with the Finnish Arts and Culture Agency. The law applies to domestic films intended for public screening.

All Finnish filmmakers and producers can deposit their films at the Finnish Arts and Culture Agency. The depository service includes free and confidential analysis of the depositor’s materials. Depositors can access their deposited materials when needed and return them to the archive’s collections afterwards.

For further information about depositing materials, contact:

Tommi Partanen, head archivist, Finnish film collection, tel. 0295 2490 45

Petteri Kalliomäki, archivist, foreign film collection, tel. 0295 2490 32

Mari Kiiski, archivist, video collection, tel. 0295 2491 26 

The digital services unit, established in 2011, produces digital copies of Finnish films so that they can continue to be shown as widely as possible. All material produced by the unit is archived exclusively in digital format.

Even in the digital age, the principle of the preservation of original materials remains central in archiving: after digitizing, films are always returned to their specialized cold storage facility. 

The related materials collection contains Finnish and foreign stills, posters, scripts and promotional materials from tens of thousands of films from the early decades of the twentieth century to the current day.

The video collection consists of legal deposit copies of video cassettes, DVDs and Blu-ray discs distributed for rental or sale in Finland, deposits of movies and programmes created with video technology, and DVD and video copies of Finnish films that have been made for research purposes. 

An essential part of our collections and archive work is the Finnish National Filmography project, which was started in the early 1980s by the Finnish Film Archive and now continues under the auspices of Kuvi. The results of Kuvi’s research and data collection are available on Elonet.

The dedicated exhibition galleries of Elävän kuvan museo (‘Museum of Moving Image’) closed in June 2015. Currently, Kuvi’s museum collections are presented in temporary exhibitions in the Kuvi’s lobby gallery and in joint exhibitions with other organizations.