Dear colleagues and friends of FIAF,

Welcome!

Cinémathèque suisse is thrilled to welcome you in Lausanne, Switzerland, from 7 to 13 April 2019 for the 75th congress of our federation. Located on the shores of Lake Geneva, the largest in Western Europe, and surrounded by vineyards, Lausanne is the capital of the Canton of Vaud, one of the 26 cantons that make up the Helvetic Confederation. The Olympic capital, where the IOC headquarters is located, along with several international sports federations, Lausanne is also a very cinematographic city, with the only university film department in French-speaking Switzerland (UNIL - Université de Lausanne), a film school (the ECAL), and Cinémathèque suisse, the national film archive.

This will be the third time, after 1954 and 1979, that Lausanne will have the opportunity of hosting a FIAF congress. And it will be the first time that the Casino de Montbenon, which has housed the administrative seat of our institution since 1981, will host the delegates from worldwide audiovisual archives.

2019 will also be an important milestone for Cinémathèque suisse: the official opening of its new Penthaz Archives and Research Center, located just fifteen kilometres out of the city in the Vaud countryside, and which will hold all of our important film and non-film collections (from nitrate to digital). Participants in the congress will have the opportunity to visit the completed site before its official inauguration!

We hope you will enjoy meeting in our region, which, in addition to being the home of many great Swiss artists (from Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz to Jean-Luc Godard, by way of Félix Vallotton), was also a land of welcome for great names in music (Igor Stravinsky), literature (Lord Byron), painting (Gustave Courbet) and, of course, the cinema, including Charles Chaplin, Audrey Hepburn, and James Mason.

As we look forward to seeing you soon in Lausanne, we already wish you an excellent journey!

Frédéric Maire
Director of Cinémathèque suisse

Cinémathèque suisse
Casino de Montbenon
Allée Ernest-Ansermet 3
1002 Lausanne

Tél: +41 58 800 02 00
info(at)cinematheque.ch