The essay aims to present an overview of the main practices of analog filmmaking in Italy through those artists and artist-run labs that are currently effecting a return to materiality in experimental cinema. Such practices refer to the cinematic practice from a counter-cultural perspective, standing as a clear antithesis to the dominant trends in worldwide media technology. Projects, individual artists and collectives have been inspired by this vocation, and have also been concerned with the survival of analog formats. Artists’ concerns focus not on the preservation of film heritage, but on film techniques, with a creative purpose, adopting an approach close to an experimental media archaeology discourse, in which the techniques used during the early days of cinema are now used afresh as part of a living legacy of film. Thus, the essay will focus on independent labs such as UnzaLab, Làbbash and ArkFilmLab which are devoted to promoting and exploiting the full potential of analog cinema, and the projects of artists such as Tiziano Doria and Samira Guadagnuolo, Andrea Saggiomo, Federica Foglia and Miriam Goi.