Orphan films—newsreels, silent-era films, home movies, avant-garde works, documentaries, and independent productions—have intimately documented our history and culture for over 100 years. But aside from scholars and archivists, few get to see and learn from these works. For most Americans, orphan films remain hidden treasures.

As part of America's celebrations for the Year 2000, we embarked on a national effort to help these works reach a larger audience.

Treasures of American Film Archives, a collaborative preservation and access project organized by the National Film Preservation Foundation, enabled 18 archives from Alaska to West Virginia to share unseen films from their collections. The groundbreaking project resulted in new preservation work on over 100 films and collections and culminated in an award-winning DVD anthology that was given to state libraries and sold to the public.

This Millennium project was made possible through major funding from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and The Pew Charitable Trusts and contributions by the NFPF, The Film Foundation, and participating archives.

"The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support the crucial efforts of this groundbreaking national collaboration which ensures the survival of our country's cultural memories." Bill Ivey Chairman National Endowment for the Arts February 24, 1999

Supported by the NEA were: University of Alaska Fairbanks, Anthology Film Archives, George Eastman House, Japanese American National Museum, Minnesota Historical Society, Museum of Modern Art, National Center for Jewish Film, New York Public Library, Northeast Historic Film, Pacific Film Archive, UCLA Film & Television Archive, and West Virginia State Archives.

The Pew Charitable Trusts funded participation by federal archives: Library of Congress, The National Archives and Records Administration, National Air and Space Museum, National Museum of American History, and National Museum of Natural History.

The Academy Archive of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences provided technical guidance and contributed films to the DVD set.

In November 2001, forty-seven films from the Treasures from American Film Archives DVD premiered on Turner Classic Movies, bringing most of these films to a national television audience for the first time ever.