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At the invitation of the Netherlands Film Museum (NFM) film- maker and essayist Hartmut Bitomsky led a workshop in the first few weeks of 1995 about the oldest non-fiction films (period 1910-1920) from the museum’s huge collection in this field. The last Rotterdam festival saw a theatrical presentation of the provisional results as a work in progress. The workshop has the character of a master class with a select group of critics, film- makers and curators and was recorded on video by students at the Netherlands Film and Television Academy (NFTVA). From more than sixty hours of video, Bitomsky cut a video film that provides a glimpse behind the scenes at the workshop while also being a filmic essay on how to look at historic film material. In a certain sense, this video essay documents the unique conservation policy of the NFM, that has been developed in recent ten years by the film-makers/curators Eric de Kuyper and Peter Delpeut (the latter also took part in the workshop). In the video film there is a striking role for the film critic, film-maker and former programme-advisor to this festival Mart Dominicus. The more cerebral, erudite but also passionate Bitomsky confronts the insights of Dominicus – always ventilated with humour and radically anti-intellectual – with a more contemplative approach. This essay on video also includes many fine fragments from the films looked at during the workshop.