The earliest attempts at preserving Lao film were made during the late 1970s by a small team of three archivists working within the Cinema Department. Their objective was to preserve films dating from the period prior to 1975, regardless of which side had made them.

However, despite their best efforts, many films produced by the Royal Lao Government were intentionally destroyed on the grounds that they were ideologically unsound, while others were lost as a result of poor storage. In 1985, for example, some 200 films sustained serious damage due to flooding.

Unfortunately the archival team was abolished along with the Cinema Department during the government reorganisation of 1988. For several years after this old films were left in corridors and store rooms to gather dust and little effort was made at further collection. However in 1991, in accordance with a proposal from a group of concerned film technicians, a National Film Archive was established within the Ministry of Information and Culture. In 1994, following the addition of a video centre, this institution became the National Film Archive and Video Centre.

Though housed from 1991 until 2005 in very modest premises in Ban Simuang, the Centre, with assistance from both the government and overseas donors, managed to create a basic climatised archive with a constant temperature of 18° C. However, the air-conditioners in the archive were old and broke down frequently, and the archive itself was not large enough to store the Centre's entire film collection.

The task of preserving historic film is at the heart of the Centre's work. It currently houses some 15,000 reels of film, comprising just under 2,000 film titles in both 16mm and 35mm format, with a ratio of approximately 50 per cent Lao and 50 per cent foreign film; the latter group includes a large number of Vietnamese war documentaries and Soviet films. To date some 50 per cent of the entire collection (including all of the Lao films) has been catalogued, each with a summary of content.

An additional 1,132 reels of Lao war film previously stored for safe keeping at the Việt Nam Film Institute in Hà Nội, have now been repatriated to Laos. These films, many of them original cuts, were moved to Việt Nam during the resistance war because they could not be stored in the caves at Viengsay. The Vietnamese government has wanted to return them for many years, but up to now the inadequacy of facilities in Vientiane had precluded this.

The National Fim Archive and Video Centre also recently acquired some 3,000 reels of films from the Luang Prabang and Houaphanh Provincial Services of Information and Culture, and it is believed that more historic film footage still resides in other provinces such as Savannakhet, Xieng Khouang and Champassak. The plan is to eventually bring all the films to Vientiane for cataloguing and preservation.

Regrettably, due to poor storage before they were brought to the Centre in 1991, some 40 per cent of the films stored at the National Film Archive and Video Centre have been damaged by bacterial fungi and mould, and a further five per cent are suffering from ‘vinegar syndrome’ (chemical breakdown due to high heat and humidity). To date restoration has consisted of splicing some broken films and cleaning footage with solvent. The Centre is keen to identify funds for staff training in film restoration and archival work and for the creation of a dedicated film restoration laboratory.