A stark distinction can be drawn between how the films for the French New Wave are preserved and circulated and how, by contrast, the Iranian New Wave lives its after-life. While the French New Wave has been preserved and digitized, the Iranian New Wave films are held in sun-drenched libraries, and, one or two, in remote and inaccessible film archives in Germany. A few stray Iranian New Wave films may show up on YouTube from time to time, then taken down, but in general, few International film series and retrospectives have had access to these exquisite productions of the 1970s in 35mm or 16mm. My paper asks what it may mean for students and historians of the 1970s pre-IRI era to only have access to these films pixelated YouTube formats? This is an urgent discussion to have, especially while the filmmakers who are still living and have valuable prints, deny access and screening rights to International film curators who in some cases may acquire funding to repair and restore old films before screenings. Take for example the case of Asia Society’s recent Iranian New Wave series in 2013 and Ebrahim Golestan’s open denial of screening rights to Forough Farrokhzad’s infamous poetic documentary on the leper colony, The House is Black. And again in the case of Asia Society’s film series where the curator received prints that have been kept in unsuitable places for film preservation: Bahman Farmanara’s Tall Shadows of the Wind arrived at Asia Society smelling like vinegar, the 35mm reels falling apart completely. What happens to the history of Iranian cinema and its scholarship when the only archive we may be lucky enough to have is YouTube? What happens to the history of cultural products and practices in an era whose modernity coincides with cinematic practice and circulation of modernity itself? Where, what archives other than film archives, in other words, can these be studied? What happens when, on YouTube, the curatorial practices associated with the organization of screenings and festivals, occur by way of YouTube’s algorithms? To what extent can we rely on YouTube to provide an archive, an archive for valuable national cultural products that gave shape to Iranian modernity, no less? Does the trade-in in formatting matter? My paper asks how these measures, that force YouTube to serve as an archive, may affect not only curatorial practices but, also importantly scholarly research on Iranian modernity?