Ernest Lindgren

Ernest Lindgren was the first Curator of the National Film Library (later National Film Archive, today BFI National Archive), which he helped establish in 1935 as a department of the British Film Institute. He led it from then to his death in 1973, and over the years built one of the first modern film archives. From 1945 and for the next three decades, he was one of the most respected and influential leaders of FIAF, serving continuously on the FIAF Executive Committee from 1946 to 1973, for most years as Vice-President.

He introduced to the fast-growing FIAF network a number of scientific methods of film preservation and cataloguing which he had developed in his archive. He also encouraged the publication by FIAF of unified catalogues of its affiliates’ holdings, showing the way in 1954 with the release of FIAF’s Union Catalogue of Selected Films. His relationship with Henri Langlois, the other undisputed leader of FIAF in the post-war period, was often strained, as they had rather different visions of what the priorities of a film archive should be, as well as totally opposed temperaments. Lindgren continued to play an important role in the FIAF community after Langlois' departure from FIAF in the early 1960s. He hosted two FIAF Congresses during his career – in Cambridge (1951) and London (1968). He was elected Honorary Vice-President of FIAF (in absentia) during the Moscow General Assembly in June 1973, a few weeks before he passed away.