Cécile Vilas becomes new director of the Association for the Preservation of the Swiss Audiovisual Heritage
The board of the Memoriav association has unanimously elected Cécile Vilas as director and successor to Christoph Stuehn, who is leaving Memoriav after five successful years to pursue professional development.
Cécile Vilas, a native of Lucerne, will take over as director of Memoriav on March 1, 2018. A Romance philologist educated at the University of Neuchâtel, she has many years of management experience in the field of culture, libraries, archives and preservation management. Since 2008, Cécile Vilas has been head of the Culture/Municipal Library and Archives Department of the City of Zofingen. Her earlier professional stages took her to Yverdon-les-Bains, where she was head of the tradition-rich Bibliothèque Publique. Through her studies and her professional stages, Cécile Vilas is very well networked both in German-speaking Switzerland and in French-speaking Switzerland. She has been president of SIGEGS (Schweizerische Interessengemeinschaft zur Erhaltung von Grafik und Schriftgut) for many years and thus has good contacts in conservation and collection management. She taught library science at SUPSI in Ticino and in the framework of a MAS at the University of Fribourg.
Cécile Vilas' professional and private interests are intertwined: her cultural passions include not only film and photography, but also theater, music and literature. The Board would like to thank Christoph Stuehn for his great and valuable commitment as Director of Memoriav. In his five years of service, he has succeeded in adapting the association's structures to today's requirements. In addition, with tireless commitment and impressive activities, he has raised public awareness of the importance of preserving the audiovisual cultural heritage. A highlight of his tenure is the online publication of the Swiss Film Weekly (1940-1975).
Organized as an association, Memoriav is actively and sustainably committed to the preservation, valorization and broad use of Switzerland's audiovisual cultural heritage. Memoriav organizes a network of all institutions and persons involved, responsible and interested in this task.
