2025 Avant-Garde Masters Grants to Preserve Seventeen Films
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Better Be Careful (1986) by Heather McAdams |
The National Film Preservation Foundation and The Film Foundation are pleased to announce the 2025 Avant-Garde Masters Grants. Works by Heather McAdams, Kathleen Laughlin, and Michael Mideke will be preserved and made accessible with generous funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.
The Chicago Film Society will continue its efforts to preserve the work of Chicago-based alternative cartoonist and filmmaker Heather McAdams, with eight titles slated for restoration. Known for her playful use of found footage and recontextualized sound, this selection represents a vibrant cross-section of McAdams’s body of work—highlighting her humor, inventive use of media, and distinctive filmmaking techniques. From early Super 8 student films like The Dream (1978) and Dr. Loomis (1978) to Jay Elvis (1991), an eccentric portrait of an Elvis impersonator, the collection traces the evolution of her style. Films such as The Space Cadets (1979), Joe Was Not So Happy (1990), and Mr. Glenn W. Turner (1990) feature hallmark elements of her practice, including appropriated soundtracks and collage-like visuals. Better Be Careful (1986) showcases her signature use of scratch animation, while My Postcard Collection (1999) stands out for its advanced animation techniques.
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Susan Through Corn (1974) by Kathleen Laughlin |
The Walker Art Center will preserve Kathleen Laughlin’s Susan Through Corn (1974), a lyrical short that follows the filmmaker’s sister, Susan, through the cornfields of St. Paul, Minnesota, in what Amos Vogel described as “an original vision, of summer, youth, a moment.” With a background in visual arts and animation, Laughlin was an integral part of the Twin Cities’ independent filmmaking community, contributing as both a teacher and graphic designer at Film in the Cities, the region’s landmark media arts center. In 2024, the Walker Art Center received an Avant-Garde Masters grant to preserve Laughlin’s earlier film Opening/Closing (1972).
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Phi Textures (1975) by Michael Mideke |
Eight films by Michael Mideke will be preserved by Anthology Film Archives, marking an overdue rediscovery of a filmmaker once described as “one of the truly unknown geniuses of black-and-white filmmaking.” Though highly regarded by his contemporaries, Mideke’s work disappeared from distribution after he shifted focus away from filmmaking. His films reveal a deep fascination with the texture and physicality of celluloid, as seen in Scratch Dance (1972), a hypnotic composition of hand-scratched black leader layered through fades and superimpositions, and Phi Textures (1975), an exploration of film grain and the "Phi Phenomenon"—the illusion of motion from static images. Mideke frequently incorporated organic materials like plants and leaves, printing them directly onto film in works such as Shadow Game (1964), Twig (1966), and Flight of Shadows (1973), each of which emphasizes the tactile and ephemeral qualities of nature and film alike. Anthology Film Archives is excited to preserve and reintroduce Mideke’s visionary body of work to contemporary audiences.
Now in its twenty-third year, the Avant-Garde Masters program, created by The Film Foundation and the NFPF, has helped 34 organizations save 251 films significant to the development of the avant-garde in America. Funding for the program is generously provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. The grants have preserved works by 92 artists, including Kenneth Anger, Shirley Clarke, Bruce Conner, Joseph Cornell, Oskar Fischinger, Hollis Frampton, Barbara Hammer, Marjorie Keller, George and Mike Kuchar, and Stan VanDerBeek. Click here to learn more about all the films preserved through the Avant-Garde Masters Grants.