Reviving Gestures and Insect Life in the Films of Sara Gómez: Ethical and Aesthetic Issues of Digital Restoration

Abstract: From 2022–2024, the Vulnerable Media Lab (VML) at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario digitally restored several documentaries made between 1962 and 1973 at the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC) by the revolutionary Black Cuban filmmaker, Sara Gómez. Save for her one posthumously released feature, De cierta manera (dir. Sara Gómez, 1977, Cuba) , Gómez's films were rarely seen outside Cuba. In the intervening decades, the actual 35mm elements had fallen into disrepair in storage in Havana; when they arrived in Canada they showed everything from mild humidity stains to significant, and irremediable, mold damage. This paper traces the digital restoration of Mi aporte / My Contribution ( dir. Sara Gómez, 1972, Cuba ), the first film completed during the VML's Sara Gómez project, recounting the ethical concerns that arose and the decisions we made in the process of restoring the films.