NATIONAL FILM PRESERVATION FOUNDATION AWARDS
FIRST FEDERALLY FUNDED GRANTS TO 23 ARCHIVES

Contact: Rolanda Chu Foerster, 415-392-7295

San Francisco, CA (March 22, 2000)—The National Film Preservation Foundation today awarded its first federally funded film preservation grants to archives in 12 states and the District of Columbia. These cash awards will help 23 nonprofit and public organizations save American films not preserved by commercial interests.

Among the films slated for preservation are home movies of Ernest Hemingway, footage of Lakota Sioux life in the 1940s, The Light in the Dark (1922) starring Lon Chaney, actualities of the Alaska Statehood Convention (1955-56), studies by industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes, portraits of Appalachian craftsmen, and avant-garde shorts by Hy Hirsh, Gunvor Nelson, and Ralph Steiner.

"Where the Foundation really makes a difference is in helping smaller archives preserve their films," said Arthur Hiller, the Directors Guild of America representative to the National Film Preservation Board, who served on the review panel. "These regionally produced films capture the truth, flavor and folklore of our past."

2000 marks the third year the NFPF has distributed preservation grants. The new federal cash awards of $1,000 to $10,000 enable archives to make preservation and public viewing copies of films important to their communities. The federal funds match private donations already raised by the NFPF. With these latest grants, the NFPF has supported film preservation in 20 states and the District of Columbia through grants and collaborative projects. Other grant opportunities will be announced at www.filmpreservation.org in April 2000.

The grant recipients are:

	Alaska Film Archives, University of Alaska Fairbanks
	Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association
	Anthology Film Archives
	Archives of Appalachia, East Tennessee State University
	George Eastman House
	Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin
	The iota Center
	Library of Congress
	Louis Wolfson II Media History Center
	Lower East Side Tenement Mus
	National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution
	National Center for Jewish Film
	National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
	Nebraska State Historical Society
	Pacific Film Archive
	San Diego Historical Society
	South Dakota Art Museum, South Dakota State University
	State Agricultural Heritage Museum, South Dakota State University
	Third World Newsreel
	UCLA Film and Television Archive
	University of Mississippi
	University of South Carolina Newsfilm Archive
	West Virginia State Archives

The National Film Preservation Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving America's film heritage. Created by the U.S. Congress in 1996, the NFPF is the charitable affiliate of the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress. For more information on NFPF Grant Programs and a complete list of the projects awarded, please visit the NFPF web site: www.filmpreservation.org.

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