UK Awards £1.1 Million Grant to Restore and Return Africa’s Lost Film Heritage

A groundbreaking new initiative to recover, preserve and repatriate Africa’s fragmented film history has officially been launched — backed by a £1.1 million grant from the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The project, titled UNREST: Unhousing Restitution, is led by the University of Liverpool and begins in early 2026.

This marks one of the most significant UK-funded interventions dedicated to African cinematic memory — and an overdue step toward correcting decades of archival loss and displacement.

What the £1.1 Million Project Will Do

Over the next two years, the UNREST team — a coalition of filmmakers, archivists, anthropologists, digital-humanities experts and African partners — will:

• Locate, restore and digitise historic African films, including anti-colonial documentaries, early post-independence cinema, and cultural recordings scattered across foreign archives.

• Develop digital-repatriation systems so African institutions and communities can access restored footage even before physical copies are returned.

• Pilot heritage-recovery projects in Sudan and Ghana, two regions heavily affected by archival destruction, political transitions and lost media infrastructure.

• Partner with African filmmakers and artists who will reinterpret recovered images into new films, installations and storytelling projects.

• Build long-term preservation infrastructure, so African archives can sustainably house and protect their own film heritage moving forward.

  
  

This project brings together research and cultural institutions in the UK, Sudan, Ghana, Egypt, Kenya and Europe — making it one of the most collaborative restitution efforts ever undertaken for African film.

Why This Matters for African Cinema

For decades, much of Africa’s early cinematic output has been:

• stored in European colonial archives,

• destroyed during conflict, or

• left to decay due to lack of preservation facilities.

  
  

UNESCO estimates that over 70% of early African audiovisual material is missing or inaccessible, meaning that whole eras of African cultural memory exist only in fragments — or not at all.

UNREST aims to change that by reframing restitution as not just the return of objects, but the restoration of memory, authorship and cultural sovereignty.

Expected Impact Over the Next Two Years

• Rediscovery of long-lost film reels documenting independence movements, cultural traditions, and everyday life from the 1930s to 1980s.

• New creative works made from restored archival material by African filmmakers, granting the past a new cinematic voice.

• Access for African researchers and students, who often must travel abroad to study footage of their own history.

• A model for future restitution projects, encouraging more investments into African-owned archiving infrastructures.

Final Word

The £1.1 million UNREST project represents a turning point. For the first time in decades, Africa’s lost film heritage is being intentionally traced, restored and returned — not as relics, but as living cultural memory.

If successful, this effort will help stitch back together Africa’s cinematic history, one recovered frame at a time.