NATIONAL FILM PRESERVATION FOUNDATION AWARDS PRESERVATION GRANTS T0 17 ORGANIZATIONS
Contact: Jeff Lambert (415-392-7291, lambert@filmpreservation.org)
San Francisco, CA (October 23, 2007)—Let There Be Light (1946), John Huston's controversial Signal Corps documentary chronicling the treatment of psychologically scarred World War II combat veterans, is among the 72 films to be preserved through grants announced today by the National Film Preservation Foundation. Among the other preservation projects receiving support are home movies of the Elvis Presley band on tour in Hawaii; a biography of Japanese American poet Lawson Inada; Leo Beuermann (1969), the Academy Award–nominated short profiling a fiercely independent, disabled man in Lawrence, Kansas; studies by poet Weldon Kees for his meditation on Point Reyes; works by silent cinema pioneer Alexander Black; local ads from the 1940s discovered in a Tennessee movie theater; Idaho mining films from the late 1920s; and The Lead Shoes (1949) by Sydney Peterson.
"As a veteran of World War II, I am thrilled to learn that John Huston's Let There Be Light will be restored," said Del Reisman, an 8th Air Force bombardier and past president of the Writers Guild of America, West. "This film is a remarkable testament to the struggle of G.I.'s to recover from terrible wounds delivered to their minds as well as their bodies."
Special grants were awarded to the three largest film preservation graduate schools in the United States to enable students to work with noted cinema preservationists on significant projects. Among the works to be saved through these collaborations are The End of the Road (1919), one of the first anti-VD films aimed at American women; six films from Hollis Frampton's Hapax Legomena series; and a medley of news stories from the Hearst Metrotone News Collection. Participating students will receive hands-on preservation experience and write about what they have learned.
The NFPF programs preserve and make accessible historically and culturally significant motion pictures that are unlikely to survive without public support. The grants distribute federal funds authorized by The National Film Preservation Foundation Act of 2005 and secured through the Library of Congress as well as preservation services contributed by public-spirited laboratories and postproduction houses. Donating services in 2007 are: Audio Mechanics, BluWave Audio, Chace Productions, CinemaLab, Cineric, Inc., Colorlab Corp., DJ Audio, Film Technology, Inc., Monoco Digital Film Labs, and Triage Motion Picture Services.
The summer grant recipients are:
- Anthology Film Archives (New York)
- Chicago Film Archives (Illinois)
- Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum (Tennessee)
- Folkstreams (Virginia)
- George Eastman House (New York)
- Lincoln City Libraries (Nebraska)
- Mississippi Department of Archives and History (Mississippi)
- National Archives and Records Administration (Washington D.C.)
- New York University (New York)
- Pacific Film Archive (California)
- Tennessee Archive of the Moving Image and Sound (Tennessee)
- UCLA Film & Television Archive (California)
- University of Idaho (Idaho)
- University of Kansas (Kansas)
- University of Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania)
- University of Vermont (Vermont)
- Visual Communications (California)
The National Film Preservation Foundation is the nonprofit organization created by the U.S. Congress to help save America's film heritage. Since starting operations in 1997, the NFPF has provided film preservation support to 167 institutions in 44 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The NFPF is the charitable affiliate of the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress. For the complete list of projects supported by the NFPF, visit the NFPF Web site: www.filmpreservation.org.
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