New Zealand Project
The New Zealand Project is a multi-year collaboration of the New Zealand Film Archive / Ngā Kaitiaki O Ngā Taonga Whitiāhua, the American archival community, and the National Film Preservation Foundation to preserve and make available American silent films from the NZFA’s vaults. So much nitrate film was reported that it was impractical to ship the entire cache to the United States. With grants from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the NFPF sent nitrate experts Leslie Lewis and Brian Meacham to New Zealand identify the films and assess which might be the most valuable to ship to the United States for preservation.
The first round of fieldwork, completed in spring 2010, uncovered astonishing treasures. Heading the list were Upstream (1927), a comedy directed by John Ford and long assumed to be lost; the first surviving film directed by and starring Mabel Normand; several reels of Maytime (1923), with Clara Bow; the earliest surviving feature from Columbia Pictures; the first existing narrative shot in Yosemite; and the only known fiction feature showcasing the Miller Brothers’ Wild West Show of Oklahoma.
During the final research trip, completed in December 2010, Leslie checked through every foot of nitrate film remaining in the American collection and arranged to ship back another 67 titles. The most surprising find was The White Shadow (1924), the first surviving feature credited to Alfred Hitchcock. Lacking opening credits, the nitrate print bore the logo of its Hollywood distributor Lewis J. Selznick Enterprises and had been assumed to be American. For the story of its discovery, click here.
The five major American silent film archives—the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, George Eastman House, the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, and UCLA Film & Television Archive—are supervising the preservation work and will take custody of the nitrate originals, as well as the new preservation masters and prints. The NZFA, whose generosity has made the project possible, will receive new prints. The NFPF is coordinating and raising funds for the undertaking and is posting digital files for many of the titles as the film-to-film preservation work is completed. Already six films are available for viewing.