Film as a medium plays an increasingly important role in fashioning historical memory. Yet curating the past is no straightforward affair, especially if the aim is decolonisation. Whether it be the tricky question of preservation and restoration of stock material or the problem of interpretation and contextualisation of its content, film provides us with a fantastically flexible object through which to raise questions about the composition of collective memory. Filmmakers and archivists screen recently discovered film heritage from Egypt, Nigeria and Guinea-Bissau and reflect on the importance cinema plays for them in fighting against collective amnesia.