In the context of current practices of inclusion and decolonization in the heritage sector this paper examines how national film archives in Europe recognize colonial legacies in their digital collections. On what terms is the heritage of colonialism made visible (or not?) in the curation of transnational audiovisual memories? This paper examines how this ‘difficult’ legacy is dealt with in metadata management and the contexualisation of the films online. This approach positions the archive into an object of analysis, shifting the focus on the archive as a site of knowledge retrieval to a site of knowledge production (Foucault 1972, Stoler 2002). The case studies will stem from the Swedish website ‘Filmarkivet.se’, which has created access to some of the digitized collections from the Swedish National Film Archives, and their recognition of Nordic colonialism in its various shapes, such as the audiovisual memories of the Sámi, as well as the legacy of the Swedish mission in sub-Saharan Africa and India. Presenting results from my ongoing research project The Lost Heritage: Improving Collaborations between Digital Film Archives (VR 2021-2024), this paper argues that the Swedish case provides a useful model for other European film archives.