Someone Will Remember for Me: Building a Home for Asian Avant-Garde Films

The term ‘avant-garde’ may evoke notions of difficulty and distance or be perceived as inaccessible and overly intellectual. However, with the Asian Avant-Garde Film Circulation Library (AAGFCL), the perspective shifts. Led by M+’s Moving Image curatorial team, including Silke Schmickl (CHANEL Lead Curator, Moving Image, M+), Ulanda Blair (Curator, Moving Image, M+), and Chanel Kong (Curator, Moving Image, M+), the AAGFCL is a long-term initiative focused on resurfacing Asian experimental moving images from the 1960s to 1990s. Many of these works were excluded from institutional archives—not due to a lack of merit, but because they fell outside existing frameworks of recognition.

The aim of the project is to collect and preserve such works, creating a platform where they can be recontextualised in the present and be reactivated in the future. As Kong describes, while these films often are personal experimentations made with limited means, they still carry experiences and emotions that transcend histories and geographies. They reflect and observe the complexities of the times and places in which their makers inhabit. The library values resonance, encouraging films to speak not through statements but through presence. It invites viewers into the forgotten moments of the past, where the smallest details, once recorded, can travel across time and space and find a resonance in someone else.

According to Blair, the AAGFCL is ‘a dynamic, ever-growing collection that fosters a community of learners and creators’. The library recognises that some works demand patience, inviting viewers to return, reflect, and re-engage over time. These include lesser-known works by both established and overlooked artists, many of which tell under-represented stories from regions across Asia.

Decisions about whether to acquire a film now or later are often guided by a long-term vision. Even when a work may not be shown immediately, the team is committed to collecting it if it holds significance—the goal is not temporary exposure but historical endurance. ‘Our life is so short,’ she says. ‘We want people in a hundred years to be able to see these historical materials.’ For the team, the archive is a commitment to a slower yet more long-lasting pace of remembering, preserving fragments of the past and present so that people in the future are able to return and reimagine.

This approach to stewardship, which values historical and material integrity, is evident in M+’s collaboration with Hong Kong artist May Fung. Films once thought to be lost were found on deteriorating formats like VHS tapes and Super 8 reels—materials that are difficult to restore due to technological limitations. These recordings preserve not only the moving image but also the layered imprints of history, including ambient sounds, the grain and flicker of analogue video, and the physical gestures of those behind and in front of the camera. Rather than restoring these films to a sanitised clarity or forcing them into current display norms, the curatorial team respects their historical and material specificities, allowing these vulnerable but valuable images to remain as they are.

While the library is not yet a public-facing platform, this edition of the Asian Avant-Garde Film Festival offers a glimpse of what is to come through the‘Spotlight on the M+ Asian Avant-Garde Film Circulation Library’ segment. Visitors will soon be able to view a selection of these rediscovered gems at the Mediatheque later this year. There are also plans for curated programmes to tour M+’s institutional partners around the world, fostering even more cross-cultural connections. Moving forward, the AAGFCL will hold space for works that are not made just for the present, but also for future encounters—when many more of us will continue to remember.