Viviana García Besné

Viviana García Besné is a filmmaker, archivist, and activist for film preservation. Her first film, Perdida (2009), had its international premiere in the official selection of Telluride Film Festival and received several awards during its journey through festivals. Her family started in the film business in 1904 and produced films until 1994.

In 2014 she founded the Permanencia Voluntaria Film Archive, whose primary focus is to bring awareness to neglected Mexican films. In collaboration with Cinema Preservation Alliance, they have received grants and support from the Academy Film Archive, the National Film Preservation Fund, the UCLA Film and Television Archive, and the Paso del Norte Community Foundation to save and restore films that can help fill the void in popular Mexican film preservation.

All their restorations have premiered at major festivals, including the Berlinale World Forum, Il Cinema Ritrovato, the Morelia Film Festival, and the Locarno Film Festival.

Permanencia Voluntaria was the guest archive for the Filmoteca Española in 2021. Viviana has been invited to talk in different venues like the Orphas Film Symposium, the Berlinale Forum Expanded, the Association of Moving Image Archivists, and Universidad Autónoma de Argentina, to mention a few. She also writes about popular Mexican cinema and its relation to Latino immigrants in the U.S. Filmoteca Española and Rutgers University Press have published her work.