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Since 2009, Cine en Femenino has been the most important showcase of the work of women filmmakers in Colombia. The festival was created by Mujer es audiovisual, a production and distribution collective spearheaded by the filmmaker Jimena Prieto. This article is an account on how submission in optical media and other materials became an accidental archive that documents the participation of women, their setbacks and achievements in the audiovisual industry. In recent years, multiple collective efforts have supported the preservation of Cine en Femenino collections to ensure that this production is reinserted into debates on cinema studies, gender and women’s studies, feminism and fields related to the content of the films. Writing from our diverse experience and as organizers and participants in the archival project, we trace back the history of Cine en Femenino and discuss how local and international support, practices such as community archiving and participatory practices have advanced archival work. The challenges and questions raised during the process might encourage other communities of creators to consider non-traditional practices to safeguard materials, encouraging considerations of the archive as an organic component of individual or collective practices since the very moment of inception of artistic practices.