The research examines the promotion of film archives from the Netherlands Filmmuseum [NFM] through Peter Delpeut’s compilation work. These ten films [1989-1999] are between two directions that are not always in compatibility, on one side an artistic cinematic search and on the other side the archivist’s will of giving access to silent films [1895-1931] that are in fragments, in colour and with a sound creation. Using audiovisual, written and oral sources, the first interest is to focus on whether how the NFM comes to produce these compilations for promoting its collections, lining out the history of this film archive and following Delpeut’s career, to understand the meeting between a man with great experience as researcher, critic and filmmaker and an institution challenging its philosophy during the 1990’s. The research then examines the process of filmmaking itself and functioning of this compilation work to show that there is a tension between sensorial and analytical terms, over the borderline of a strict promotion of NFM’s silent films. The last part explores the utilisation of these compilations, the way they are related to Museum’s programming politics, how they affect this institution and Delpeut’s dynamics, beyond the film archive, each time evaluating the contributions and limitations for the transmission of silent cinema heritage
