NATIONAL FILM PRESERVATION FOUNDATION AWARDS FILM PRESERVATION GRANTS TO 33 ARCHIVES
Contact: Barbara Gibson (415-392-7291, gibson@filmpreservation.org)
San Francisco, CA (May 12, 2003)—Stronger than Death with silent superstar Nazimova; an early documentary on the workings of an American hospital, made by Johns Hopkins in 1932; and the opening day performances at the New Orleans' Jazz Museum (1967) are among the 65 films to be saved through grants announced today by the National Film Preservation Foundation. The awards will help 33 archives across the country save American "orphan" films that are not preserved by commercial interests.
Other historically and culturally significant films slated for preservation include: color footage of Admiral Byrd's 1939 Antarctica Expedition; a 1930 series on the art of shipbuilding; Norman Bel Geddes' documentary on his landmark stage production of Hamlet; 1958 interviews with Minnesota authors on how the Midwest shaped their work; Radar Indicators introducing then-secret technology to World War II servicemen; and avant-garde works by Nathaniel Dorsky, Jules Engel, and Larry Jordan.
"The National Film Preservation Foundation makes it possible for archives, libraries and museums to save culturally significant films that might otherwise be lost and more organizations are participating each year," said film critic Jay Carr (New England Cable News), representing the National Film Preservation Board on the grant panel. "Thanks to the federal preservation funding provided through the Library of Congress, Americans will be able to see and learn from these films for generations to come."
The grant recipients are:
- American Museum of Natural History (New York)
- Anthology Film Archives (New York)
- Appalshop Archive (Kentucky)
- Chicago Filmmakers (Illinois)
- Duke University (North Carolina)
- Emory University (Georgia)
- Explorers Club (New York)
- Florida Moving Image Archive (Florida)
- George Eastman House (New York)
- Honeywell Foundation (Indiana)
- Hunter College, CUNY (New York)
- The iotaCenter (California)
- Johns Hopkins University (Maryland)
- Louisiana State Museum (Louisiana)
- Mariners' Museum (Virginia)
- Minnesota Historical Society (Minnesota)
- MIT Museum (Massachusetts)
- National Center for Jewish Film (Massachusetts)
- New Mexico State Records Center and Archives (New Mexico)
- New York Public Library (New York)
- Northeast Historic Film (Maine)
- Ohio State University (Ohio)
- Oklahoma Historical Society (Oklahoma)
- Pacific Film Archive (California)
- Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History (New York)
- San Francisco Media Archive (California)
- Chicago Province Archives, Society of the Divine Word (Illinois)
- St. Vincent Medical Center (California)
- UCLA Film and Television Archive (California)
- University of Southern California (California)
- University of South Carolina (South Carolina)
- University of Texas at Austin (Texas)
- Wayne State University (Michigan)
The federal awards are funded through The National Film Preservation Foundation Act of 1996. With these grants, the NFPF has advanced film preservation in 34 states and the District of Columbia and helped save more than 600 films and collections.
The National Film Preservation Foundation is the nonprofit organization created by the U.S. Congress in 1996 to help save America's film heritage. The NFPF is the charitable affiliate of the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress.
# # # # #