Found Futures 2: Olena Honcharuk, Anastasiya Verlinska: Ukrainian Animation / Caroline Fournier, Tamer El Said: Egyptian, Belgian and Swiss Amateur Films / Tamer El Said: Cimatheque Cairo - Letters from the Archive

100th anniversary of Ukrainian Animation Cinema in 2027 and LINOLEUM Animation Festival
Presentation by Olena Honcharuk, Anastasiya Verlinska

Ahead of the 100th anniversary of Ukrainian animation in 2027, LINOLEUM is bringing together animators, educators, archivists, cultural institutions, and industry professionals to shape a shared vision for the celebration. Throughout 2026, a series of thematic focus groups explored Ukrainian animation heritage, education, new technologies, contemporary production, and ways to engage audiences across the country and abroad. The results will serve as a basis for a broader anniversary programme combining screenings, exhibitions, educational initiatives, research, digitisation and restoration projects, and activities designed to make the history and future of Ukrainian animation more visible in Ukraine and internationally.

A collection of home movies and film related artefacts at the intersection of Egyptian, Belgian and Swiss heritage
Presentation by Caroline Fournier, Tamer El Said

In 2020, the Cinémathèque suisse received from her grand-daughter the collection of home movies and photos taken by Henri Naus – Belgian entrepreneur that was managing a sugar factory in Egypt. Her grand-daughter, after the passing of her mother, aware of the value of such films – she was a former painting restorer – decided to give the collection to a film archive. Henri Naus’s is mainly part of both Belgian and Egyptian cultural heritage. The Cinémathèque suisse digitized some films, all photos and documents in a viewing quality and shared it with Cimatheque (Cairo) and Cinémathèque royale de Belgique. This joint project aims to understand better this shared heritage, and the necessity of collaborating on preservation, research, creation and access. It raises topics as the role of home movies in the historical heritage; the preservation of small gage and mixed techniques; the complementarity of film and film related collections and the restitution and preservation of transnational heritage, linked to colonialism.

Cimatheque Cairo – Letters from the Archive
Presentation by Tamer El Said

Letters from the Archive was a creative workshop centred on the film-letter as a form of personal storytelling shaped by broader socio-political contexts. Engaging with the work of Cameroonian filmmaker Jean-Marie Teno and Sudanese filmmaker Hussein Shariffe, the workshop brought together eight emerging filmmakers from Cameroon, Egypt, and the Sudanese community in Egypt to explore the theoretical and aesthetic possibilities of the film-letter.  Working with materials drawn from different archives, the participants developed their own archive-based film-letters, considering how archival images can be re-used and recontextualized through personal forms of address. The workshop resulted in eight short films that combine the film-letter format with archival material. The films are currently in the final stages of post-production.

Anastasiya Verlinska worked for ten years as a project manager at FILM.UA Group. She joined LINOLEUM Animation Festival in 2014 and became its director in 2016. She curates screenings, develops educational programmes, and contributes to cultural policy as an expert for the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, Ukrainian State Film Agency, and RES-POL, supporting evidence-based cultural and media policy development in Ukraine.  

Caroline Fournier has become the head of the heritage department of the Cinémathèque suisse in 2024, after serving as manager of the film conservation/restoration department and head of the film collections. In 2014, she successfully defended her doctoral dissertation on multiple versions in Spanish cinema at the University of Paris III. She is an active member of the Technical Commission and the Executive Committee of the FIAF.

Tamer El Said is a filmmaker and producer living between Berlin and Cairo. His filmography includes 17 films that have received many local and international awards. Tamer founded Zero Production in 2007 to produce independent films. He is a founder and the joint Artistic Director of Cimatheque – Alternative Film Center in Cairo, Co-Director of the archive-based interdisciplinary project Rewind Forward, and an UNREST cultural partner.