LYON, France — Andrea Kalas, vice president of media and archives services at Iron Mountain and one of the most influential voices in the field, delivered the keynote address at this year’s Marché International du Film Classique (MIFC), held in conjunction with the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon, France.
Throughout a career spanning more than three decades, from his early days at the UCLA Film & Television Archive, to the British Film Institute, Paramount Pictures and now Iron Mountain, Kalas has helped design three subzero vaults to protect the fragile legacy of nitrate and acetate film – the frozen heart of cinema history.
At Iron Mountain, the company’s work goes well beyond celluloid. “We help our clients defend their archives,” she said, describing a mission that covers not only film elements, but also production notes, scripts, costumes and props. “Things are so risky. Digitizing video tapes for example – the number of machines available is decreasing. The will is there, but the money isn’t always there.”
Kalas’ intervention at MIFC, the world’s largest market dedicated to heritage cinema, traced the technical and cultural evolution of film preservation. The turning point, she recalls, came in the late 1980s, when media mogul Ted Turner began colorizing black-and-white classics like “Citizen Kane.” “There was a huge outcry,” she said. “I think John Huston called it ‘cultural devastation.’ The directors were very unhappy – it was a question of artist rights: “This is the film I created and you are changing it. It’s not cool.’
What followed, Kalas explained, was nothing short of a revolution. “From this crisis was born a true revolution in film preservation. [was introduced] called the Film Preservation Act, Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation was established, Iron Mountain began storing films for the first time, and the Association of Moving Image Archivists was formed. There was a before and an after. »
This moment also marked a philosophical shift: the recognition that preservation is not an afterthought but a part of cinema itself. “Remember back then there was no IMDB, we didn’t even know what films we had. So the AFI stepped in and did the AFI catalog for the first time. We had a list of films that were American for the first time. Amazing!”
In addition to his work at Iron Mountain, Kalas also directs the Academy Digital Preservation Forum, a platform where archivists, filmmakers, and technologists come together to exchange ideas, share best practices, and address challenges related to digital and analog cinema security for the future.
During his years at Paramount, Kalas led the restoration of the studio’s landmark works, including “Wings” (1927), the first winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture. “Not only did we restore the film, which was very difficult because the footage was very compromised, but we also had the original music, which we re-recorded,” she explained.
Wings
The project took on new life when “Star Wars” sound designer Ben Burtt created an audio mix combining the original score with vintage airplane effects. “The day we saw it, he said, ‘You know, it’s not a silent film anymore. It’s a war film.’ And I really like that: that’s when you feel successful – when people forget they’re watching a silent film. They’re just watching a movie.
Recalling one of the highlights of his career, Kalas described hosting a private screening of Francis Ford Coppola’s new cut of “The Godfather: Part III” at the Paramount Theater in the midst of COVID at the director’s request. Long considered the minor film in the trilogy, reviews of the film “really took a dig” at its actors, many of whom had worked on the previous installments. “They were very emotional,” she added with a laugh. “Al Pacino wanted to give Andy Garcia a big hug, and he looked at the mask, like, ‘It’s COVID, man, back off,'” she smiled.
In his conversation with Variety Before the keynote, Kalas also discussed the rise of AI in the restaurant industry. “I was working on ‘Sunset Boulevard’ and we used a lot of very nuanced AI tools to extract individual audio tracks so we could eliminate hiss and buzz. With AI, you just have a little more power, a little better tools to be able to do that.”
But, she added, with great power comes great responsibility. “The more powerful they are, the more responsibility you have to use them well. This oversight of the restoration with people who have done their research on the film, who really know what they’re doing, in conjunction with the technologists who build the tools – this collaboration continues, but with greater responsibility.”
She concluded with a pointed reminder: “It’s about making sure that you have archivists in the mix, because they can actually help you if you’re worried about your film or your show or your image or your photography being honored in this AI world. Archivists know where the real things are. We have a record of it. When archivists were in the mix, that really helped encourage Scorsese to take action, and to encourage the U.S. government to act. This is my message: make sure you talk to your archivists. when you talk about AI.
The MIFC is supporting the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon until October 16.
Andrea’s party
