Access Alley The NFPF Blog

Register for a 2023 NFPF Grant by March 24th

Friday, March 24th is the registration deadline for the National Film Preservation Foundation’s federally funded grant program, made possible by the Library of Congress Sound Recording and Film Preservation Programs Reauthorization Act of 2016.

The NFPF offers two types of federal cash grants that support the preservation of historically and culturally significant American films. Completed applications will be due Friday, April 28th.

Basic Preservation Grants fund laboratory work to create preservation masters and access copies, and are open to nonprofit and public institutions in the United States that provide public access to their film collections. The awards range from $1,000 to $20,000.

Matching Grants help experienced institutions undertake larger-scale projects. Applicants may request cash stipends of between $20,001 and $75,000 to fund laboratory work. They must “match” the NFPF … Read more

Seven Films to be Preserved Through Avant-Garde Masters Grants

Plumb Line (1971) by Carolee Schneemann.

A portrait of a drag artist by Heather McAdams, a structural film by Lawrence Gottheim, two evocations of city/ landscapes by Allen Downs, and three works by Carolee Schneemann will be preserved and made available through the 2022 Avant-Garde Masters Grants, awarded by The Film Foundation and the National Film Preservation Foundation.

Chicago-based alternative cartoonist Heather McAdams assembled her films from found footage, viewing pop culture’s scraps through an anarchic feminist lens. While teaching in Lexington, Kentucky, McAdams befriended Bradley Harrison Picklesimer, owner of a drag bar/nightclub on Main Street. Assembled “like a crazy quilt,” to quote McAdams, Meet…Bradley Harrison Picklesimer (1988) scrambles found and direct footage to cover its subject’s personal ups and downs, … Read more

60 Films to be Saved by the NFPF’s 2022 Grants

The Cruz Brothers and Miss Malloy (1980) will be preserved by the Yale Film Archive with NFPF support.

The National Film Preservation Foundation is proud to announce the winners of its 2022 federally funded grants. 28 institutions will use the awards to preserve 60 films, including the 1921 mystery-western Trailin’, starring Tom Mix, the first true cowboy movie star; lecture reels of Dian Fossey’s groundbreaking mountain gorilla research; and the short comedic feature The Cruz Brothers and Miss Malloy (1980), one of two films completed filmmaker/professor Kathleen Collins before her premature death from cancer.

“Losing Ground (1982), the second and final film by Kathleen Collins, was added to the National Film Registry in 2020,” notes Allyson Nadia Field, Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago, and a member of the National Film Preservation Board … Read more

Register for a 2022 NFPF Grant by March 25th!

Friday, March 25th marks the registration deadline for the National Film Preservation Foundation’s federally funded grant program, made possible by the Library of Congress Sound Recording and Film Preservation Programs Reauthorization Act of 2016.

The NFPF offers two types of federal cash grants that support the preservation of historically and culturally significant American films. Completed applications will be due Friday, April 29th.

Basic Preservation Grants fund laboratory work to create preservation masters and access copies, and are open to nonprofit and public institutions in the United States that provide public access to their film collections. The awards range from $1,000 to $20,000.

Matching Grants help experienced institutions undertake larger-scale projects; applicants may request cash stipends of between $20,001 and $75,000 to fund laboratory work. They must “match” the NFPF … Read more

Seven Experimental Classics To Be Preserved Through Avant-Garde Masters Grants

Cathy Cook’s The Match That Started My Fire (1992) will be preserved by the Film-Makers’ Cooperative.

A poetic montage by Ron Rice, a diary film by Ken Jacobs, a feminist exploration of sexual awakenings by Cathy Cook, and four works by  rediscovered filmmaker Roger Jacoby will be preserved and made available through the 2021 Avant-Garde Masters Grants, awarded by The Film Foundation and the National Film Preservation Foundation.

During his short life Ron Rice (1935–64) completed only three films. Senseless (1962), his second and least seen work, arose from an attempt to film the counterculture in Venice, California, and a utopian commune in Mexico. Rice combined home movie–style footage, street photography, landscapes shot from moving vehicles, and images from a bullfight in Acapulco. The result, anti-narrative in structure but formalist in its … Read more