Audiovisual Preservation Exchange (APEX)

The 2025 Audiovisual Preservation Exchange (APEX) will take place in Guadalajara, Mexico between May 26 - June 6, 2025. NYU MIAP students, recent graduates, and alumni will be working alongside employees and students at the Guadalajara International Film Festival Cinematheque; the Visual and Sound Archive of the Jalisco State Public Library; and the Department of Image and Sound of Universidad de Guadalajara. Participants will be working with host institutions to assess collections with a variety of audiovisual formats and cataloging analog, optical, and digital holdings. A variety of public workshops and masterclasses will be held as well, covering topics such as digitization, mixed media, funding, and more. 

MIAP and the Archipelago Network hosted APEX Greece May 22-31, 2024. MIAP students and select archivists joined Athens and Syros participants to preserve Super 8 and 16mm films of Greek and international amateur cinema, along with regional TV and radio broadcasts. Participants partially digitized this collection, and improved cataloging methods and accessibility for both archives. Public programming including workshops and screenings were also held in Syros, Greece. Realized in collaboration with Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, Of the Anonymous – Amateur Audiovisual Material Archive, Aigaio Radio & TV, AVP, Urbanski, Image Permanence Institute, and the Municipality of Syros-Ermoupolis.

APEX Quito took place from May 21 to June 2, 2023 in Quito, Ecuador. The program was organized in collaboration with the Cinemateca Nacional Ulises Estrella and the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar (UASB). Four teams of students, archivists, and staff members worked together in the following areas: cataloging systems and workflows, film preservation workflows and inventories, magnetic media collection management and digitization, and development of workflows for the CONAIE (Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador) collection. The work with the CONAIE collection was of significant importance as this deposit was the result of multiple negotiations between indigenous communities and the Cinemateca. Other activities included public workshops, screenings, and the participation in the "Jornadas de Archivos Audiovisuales" (Audiovisual Archives Colloquium) organized by UASB. It was a very active week of exchange, think tanks, and conversation with colleagues from the Andean region: Perú, Bolivia, and Colombia with a very successful turnaround and local participation.

APEX 2022 took place from May 17 to 27, 2022 in Fundación Promedios Comunitarios, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.

The NYU MIAP Audiovisual Preservation Exchange (APEX) 2021 edition took place virtually, from May 27 to June 2, 2021. We held a series of online workshops with Video nas Aldeias (Video in the Villages) and Americas Media Initiative / Promedios de Comunicacion Comunitaria, both indigenous media collectives from Brazil and Mexico, respectively. These workshops were made possible thanks to funding from a partnership with NYU Bobst Library and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

We also did an assessment of the personal collection of Professor Jorge Ruffinelli, a pioneer scholar in Latin American Cinema and Literature studies in the US, now retired from Stanford University.  We also held an online session to collaborate on scanning technical solutions for the Laboratório Universitário da Preservação Audiovisual at Universidade Federal Fluminense (Niterói, Brazil) and Cinemateca de Bogotá, Archivo Vivo (Colombia, APEX 2013).

APEX Puerto Rico took place from May 27 to June 7, 2019 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We had a record number of institutions wanting to partner. We hope that the common dialogue and exchange through the various open activities planned will turn into long-term collaborations throughout the islands.  We worked mostly in San Juan and a small group visited Vieques Island.

APEX Rio 2018 took place from June 3 to 15, 2018 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Students, faculty, and graduates from NYU's MIAP program collaborated with colleagues at four institutions in the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Niterói, Brazil: the Archive of the City of Rio (Arquivo Geral da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro), the Ministry of Culture's Audiovisual (Archive Centro Técnico do Audiovisual - CATV), the Cinemateque of the Museum of Modern Art (Cinemateca do Museu de Arte Moderna - MAM), and Federal Fluminense University (Universidad Federal Fluminense - UFF). APEX activities were preceded by a two-day summit (June 1-2) in Rio to celebrate and assess ten years of APEX projects across cultural heritage organizations in Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ghana, Spain, and Uruguay, and to set common goals for future collaborations. 

APEX 2017 took place from May 22 to May 31 in Cartagena, Spain, and elsewhere in the country's southeastern Murcia region, with additional activities in Madrid on June 2. MIAP students, faculty, and alumni worked in partnership with a graduate student from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and associates from host organizations Memorias Celuloides, Red de Cine Domestíco, Archivo Municipal de Cartagena, and Filmoteca Regional de Murcia.

APEX 2016 took place during the weeks of May 23 and May 30 in Santiago, Chile. APEX is a collaboration between NYU’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation (MIAP) Program, the AMIA student chapter at NYU, our partners in Chile—Biblioteca Nacional de Chile (National Library) and Señal Tres la Victoria (community television station). This year marks the fourth APEX organized by NYU students.

APEX 2015 in Buenos Aires was the first year that APEX collaborated with a New York University global site, with the participation of two host institutions, el Museo del Cine and TV Pública.

APEX 2014 took place in Montevideo, Uruguay, with the participation of five local instituions: Universidad Católica del Uruguay, The National Image Archive of SODRE, Cinemateca Uruguaya, Universidad de la República, and Fundación de Arte Contemporáneo.

A student-led initiative to visit and team up with the Colombian Film Heritage Foundation (Fundación Patrimonio Fílmico Colombiano) for the preservation of audiovisual materials of historical, cultural, and aesthetic importance.

APEX in Ghana 2010 partnered with the Real Life Documentary Festival, the West African Documentary Forum and NYU in Ghana to hold a series of audiovisual preservation events in Accra, Ghana. We also worked closely with the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, TV 3/GAMA and the National Film and Television Institute to carry out the events, and we are grateful for their assistance. We are also grateful to our supporters who made this year's trip and events possible: the NYU Department of Cinema Studies , the NYU Office of Global Programs , Jim Lindner (Media Matters ), Mick Newnham (National Film and Sound Archive of Australia), and MacDonald & Associates. Also thanks to Jonah Volk (MIAP '10) for contributing his research on preservation of file-based video.

The APEX in Ghana 2010 team was again led by NYU Professor Mona Jimenez, and was comprised of Kara Van Malssen (NYU), Ishumael Zinyengere (UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda), and Jennifer Blaylock (NYU).

A team of film experts and archivists from the United States under the direction of Professor Dan Streible traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina in May 2009 to help the Museo del Cine preserve it's orphan films.

Professor Mona Jimenez and Research Specialist Kara Van Malssen (MIAP '06) returned to Accra, Ghana from 12 to 29 May 2009. They were joined this year by Jennifer Blaylock (MIAP '10), Mick Newnham (Senior Research Scientist at the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia), and Ishumael Zinyengere (Audiovisual Archivist at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda). Following on the successful short worshop, and site visits conducted the previous year, this year the team conduced a week-long workshop called "Preserving Our Audiovisual Heritage: Film and Video Collections." 26 participants from institutions in the area attended, including staff from Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Metro TV, TV3, TV Africa, Costal TV, the National Film and Television Institute, and the Cinema Department of the Information Services Department under the Ministry of Information.

Since 2008, APEX Ghana has aimed to promote Ghanaian audiovisual archives through collaboration and knowledge exchange between Ghanaian archivists, MIAP students and faculty, and our respective affiliated professional networks. Over the years, the exchange has produced a variety of exciting activities: workshops for local practitioners in Ghana and abroad, internships placements for MIAP student interns at Ghanaian institutions, at least one Fulbright Fellowship, and the creation of an audio digitization lab at the University of Ghana's Institute for African Studies Archive. These activities have resulted in increased access to Ghanaian audiovisual heritage for teaching, learning, and scholarship, both today and in the future.