Archival & Preservation

Archive work in Italy rests on a deep national past. Cineteca Nazionale in Rome, Cineteca di Bologna, Istituto Luce-Cinecittà, and ANICA Servizi anchor decades of restoring and saving film. Today's shoots draw on that heritage when planning long-term storage. We set up archive workflows that guard a production's source negatives, picture and audio masters, extra versions, VFX renders, and project files. These last for decades to come. Master copies are built to today's SMPTE and IMF specs and checked against MD5 and xxHash signatures. We then write them to LTO-9 tape libraries in LTFS format. Backup LTO copies are kept in separate sites across Rome, Milan, and Bologna to guard against site-level loss.

For shoots using the MiC 40% Italian Cinema Plan or PCN tax-credit certification, archive files form part of the official paper trail. They must be kept for audit and legal-deposit needs. Our team handles the records, MAM cataloguing, and metadata schema needed to meet MiC, ANICA, and Cineteca Nazionale deposit rules. We track format change closely. By watching LTO cycles, codec shifts, and container ageing, we move files to today's standards before the source media goes unreadable.

Each catalogue we deliver has searchable metadata layers, set word lists, and clear rights data built in. This means re-issues, restored cuts, anniversary releases, and new area licences can be put together years later. There is no need to dig through unlabelled drives. We treat the archive as a living asset, not a graveyard.

Our masters are built to open standards, not house formats. We hold the picture master in mezzanine or uncompressed form. We then build an IMF package, so future re-versions stay simple. Audio stems, graphics, and project files are wrapped in open MXF. Each asset carries SMPTE metadata. So any facility can read and restore the package decades from now, with no locked-in tools or lost playback gear.

Turnaround is planned around the shoot's wrap, not bolted on at the end. We ingest, verify, and write masters to LTO in parallel. So the archive is ready as the project closes. Each LTO tape is checked after writing, and we keep a full list of every asset and its checksum. For live libraries, we book regular health checks and migration windows. Reads stay clean well before any tape reaches the end of its rated life.

Security sits at the heart of every archive we hold. Master copies are kept in separate sites across Rome, Milan, and Bologna. So no single failure can wipe a shoot's history. Access is logged and limited to named operators. Each transfer is checked against its MD5 or xxHash signature. We track the chain of custody for every asset. This gives rights holders a clear, audit-ready record when masters are pulled for a future release.