Academy Extends Annual Support of Preservation Foundation
Press release courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
BEVERLY HILLS, CA (November 11, 2005)—The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has made a third pledge of $250,000 to the National Film Preservation Foundation to help the nation's film archives preserve "orphan films," bringing the total Academy gift to date to $750,000.
"Film preservation is an activity closest to the Academy's heart," said Academy President Sid Ganis. "And we feel particularly fond—and proud—of the work the NFPF is doing to preserve the historically and culturally significant films that no one has an economic incentive to save. This effort represents the last line of defense against the complete disappearance of major moments in the history of our art form."
The Academy first pledged $250,000 to the NFPF in October, 1997, to help launch the then-fledgling organization. That pledge was paid off in 2000 and the Academy's Board of Governors voted an additional $250,000 pledge, to be paid at $50,000 a year. This pledge has once again been renewed.
"The Academy's first gift laid the groundwork for our programs," said Roger L. Mayer, chairman of the NFPF board, "and the second multi-year gift enabled us to expand them across the country. These gifts have helped sustain our operations and made it possible to build film preservation into a truly national movement. The Academy's charitable leadership provides a model to the industry and inspires other donors to support our work."
"Orphan films" are films such as newsreels, independent films, documentaries and avant-garde, ethnic and public domain material which have no studio or other entity with an economic motive to save them.
These are the films the NFPF was created by Congress in 1996 to protect. The NFPF is the charitable affiliate of the National Film Preservation Board, which annually adds to the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress titles which constitute a national roster of films that have contributed significantly to American culture and whose preservation must be assured.
The Academy Film Archive, which is in its own right one of the nation's leading archives, continues to receive its funding directly from the Academy.
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