NATIONAL FILM PRESERVATION FOUNDATION AWARDS GRANTS TO 23 ARCHIVES
Contact: Barbara Gibson (415-392-7291, barbara@webbnet.com)
San Francisco, CA (August 22, 2001)—The first "talkie" shot at the White House and home movies of Eugene O'Neill are among the 46 films that will be preserved through grants announced today by the National Film Preservation Foundation. These awards will help 23 film archives across the country save American "orphan" films that are not preserved by commercial interests.
Other culturally significant films slated for preservation include: John Whitney's Catalog, the experimental film reputed to have inspired the "stargate corridor" sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey; the last footage of Will Rogers before his fatal air crash; documentaries of Detroit's ethnic neighborhoods in 1952; a film of ice harvesting in Minnesota; home movies of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera; and a 1955 industrial short explaining how to sell television sets.
"The De Forest Phonofilms of President Calvin Coolidge, Eddie Cantor, and vaudeville stars, were made on a pioneering sound-on-film system that cannot be presented in theaters today. Through this grant, we will help the Library of Congress restore the nonstandard soundtracks so that these national treasures can be seen and heard by the public once again," said Bob Heiber, President of Chace Productions. Chace is one of fifteen commercial laboratories and post-production houses supporting the NFPF programs through services or cash donations.
The grant recipients are:
- Anthology Film Archives (New York)
- George Eastman House (New York)
- iotaCenter (California)
- LeTourneau University (Texas)
- Library of Congress (District of Columbia)
- Louis Wolfson II Media History Center (Florida)
- Minnesota Historical Society (Minnesota)
- Museum of Fine Arts Houston (Texas)
- National Center for Jewish Film (Massachusetts)
- National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution (District of Columbia)
- Nebraska State Historical Society (Nebraska)
- Northeast Historic Film (Maine)
- Oklahoma Historical Society (Oklahoma)
- Peabody Essex Museum (Massachusetts)
- San Diego Historical Society (California)
- UCLA Film and Television Archive (California)
- University of Alaska Fairbanks (Alaska)
- University of Minnesota (Minnesota)
- University of Texas at San Antonio (Texas)
- USS Constitution Museum (Massachusetts)
- Wayne State University (Michigan)
- Whitney Museum of American Art (New York)
Fourteen of the cash awards are made possible through federal support. The other grants distribute preservation services contributed by laboratories and post-production houses. With these latest grants, the NFPF has advanced film preservation in 27 states and the District of Columbia and helped save 395 films and collections. More film preservation grant opportunities will be announced on the NFPF web site in October 2001.
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.
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