In this presentation I will discuss the transnational collaborative restoration project of Amuhuelai-mi (1972), the first film of Chilean director Marilú Mallet. This experimental short denounces the marginalization and forced migration of the Mapuche people from their lands to the city. Following the military coup, Mallet fled to Canada, where she still lives and where she developed an outstanding career. Despite being celebrated for her groundbreaking first-person essay film Journal inachevé (1982), which was recently chosen as one of the 1001 documentary films to be part of UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, her work remains relatively unknown outside of specialized circles and her filmic legacy is in urgent need of preservation. My presentation will focus on the transnational, institutional, intergenerational and affective alliances that mobilized to carry out the film’s restoration, which started in 2023 and is due to be completed in 2026. Self-funded through the voluntary labor of those involved, the film was scanned in 2K from the only two existing 16mm positive copies held in the archives of the Arsenal in Berlin and in the Cineteca Universidad de Chile. The digital restoration was carried out by the Vulnerable Media Lab at Queen’s University in Canada. A collaborative effort in which Mallet and I were also part of, this presentation reflects on the role that film scholars can play in restoration and preservation initiatives as well as the challenges and possibilities presented by South/North projects such as this one.