NATIONAL FILM PRESERVATION FOUNDATION AWARDS FILM PRESERVATION GRANTS TO 18 ARCHIVES
Contact: Jeff Lambert (415-392-7291, lambert@filmpreservation.org)
San Francisco, CA (September 30, 2003)—African-American writer Lebert Bethune's 1964 documentary about Malcolm X made just months before the civil rights leader was assassinated and amateur footage taken at the Heart Mountain Japanese-American relocation camp during World War II are among the 31 films that will be preserved through grants announced today by the National Film Preservation Foundation. These awards will help 18 archives across the country save American "orphan" films that are not preserved by commercial interests.
Other culturally significant films slated for preservation include: a "Jazz Funeral" shot in 1963 on the streets of New Orleans; a 1938 promotional film celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Hutzler's department store in Maryland; a dance film featuring students of Isadora Duncan demonstrating her techniques and choreography; an Egyptian travelogue taken in the early 1920s; A Daughter of the Poor (1917), starring Bessie Love; an industrial film from 1951 demonstrating the manufacture of crystal-controlled oscillators; two avant-garde works by Willard Maas; and three International Film Federation documentaries from the series African Village Life.
"Once preservation of these films is complete, they will be made available to the public. Access is what make preservation so necessary," said Rick Prelinger who served on the federal grant review panel representing the National Film Preservation Board. "The growing range of films available to scholars and the public through programs like these is changing how we view American film."
Ten of the awards are funded through The National Film Preservation Foundation Act of 1996 and secured through appropriations from the Library of Congress. The remaining grants distribute preservation services contributed by public-spirited laboratories and postproduction houses. Since starting operations in 1997, the NFPF has advanced film preservation in 34 states and the District of Columbia and helped save more than 630 films and collections.
The grant recipients are:
- Anthology Film Archives (New York)
- Chicago Filmmakers (Illinois)
- Coe College (Iowa)
- Donnell Media Center, New York Public Library (New York)
- The Field Museum (Illinois)
- Florida Moving Image Archive (Florida)
- George Eastman House (New York)
- The Historic New Orleans Collection (Louisiana)
- Japanese American National Museum (California)
- Jerome Robbins Dance Division, New York Public Library (New York)
- Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.)
- Maryland Historical Society (Maryland)
- National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution (Washington, D.C.)
- San Francisco Media Archive (California)
- UCLA Film and Television Archive (California)
- University of Alaska Fairbanks (Alaska)
- University of Iowa (Iowa)
- Yale University (Connecticut)
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 a complete list of grant recipients and a list of laboratories and post-production houses donating services to the NFPF, please visit the NFPF web site: www.filmpreservation.org.
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