National Film Preservation Foundation: 2025 Federal Grant Winners

Films Preserved Through the NFPF

2025 Federal Grant Winners

Nine films by Jordan Belson, including Cosmos (1969), will be preserved by the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.
68mm Mutoscope Film (ca.1898), untitled footage created for viewing through the titular coin-in-the-slot machine (National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution).
Aroused Citizens of Georgia (1947), documentation of a town meeting to voice concerns over the Georgia Assembly’s election of Herman Talmadge as governor during the “Three Governors” controversy of 1947 (Atlanta History Center).
August Plahn Collection (1920s), parades and political speeches filmed by the Danish American inventor (National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution).
Bardo Follies (1967), Owen Land's film of looped projection as it burns in the projector’s gate (Anthology Film Archives).
Caravan (1952), Jordan Belson animates his long scroll paintings, producing exuberent shifts in texture and color, set to the bop jazz sound of Dizzy Gillespie (Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive).
Chronicle (1955), early animated film by Jordan Belson commissioned by the San Francisco Chronicle as an advertisement to be shown in cinemas (Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive).
Classroom Activities at the Gradwohl School of Laboratory Technique, St. Louis, MO (1945/1946), promotional film showing daily activities at the school for forensic science (Washington University in St. Louis).
Color-Separation Films by August Plahn (1920s), 66mm experimental footage of an additive three-color film process devised by the Danish American inventor (National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution).
Cosmos (1969), Jordan Belson’s “journey to the center of our galaxy, where the viewer is caught up in its spiral vortex and drawn into the nucleus" (Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive).
David Smith, American Sculptor, 1906–1966 (1983), documentary featuring interviews and footage of David Smith at work, produced in conjunction with an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art (National Gallery of Art).
Diploteratology (1978), re-edited, re-ordered, and re-titled version of Bardo Follies by Owen Land (Anthology Film Archives).
Don’t Bank on Amerika (1970), documentary by Peter Biskind examining campus protests and the burning of a nearby branch of the Bank of America (University of California Santa Barbara).
Drawings (1952), cinematic exploration of Jordan Belson’s ink on paper drawings that evoke images of neural systems such as brain cells, pulsing veins, and neurons (Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive).
Eskimo Harvest (ca.1937), scenes of daily life and subsistence activities in the Alaskan Inupiat community of Kingigin, as filmed by husband-and-wife schoolteachers from California (University of Alaska Fairbanks).
Eskimo Cuts (ca.1937), scenes of travel along Alaska’s western coast and life in the Inupiat community of Kingigin (University of Alaska Fairbanks).
Femme/Woman: A Tapestry by Joan Miró (1980), documentary featuring the design and execution of a large-scale tapestry by Catalan-Spanish painter, sculptor, and ceramist Joan Miró, commissioned by the National Gallery of Art (National Gallery of Art).
Filipino Intercity Athletic Meets (1940), home movie by Nicholas Viernes capturing amateur sports and a children’s bike pageant (Filipino American Historical Society of Chicago).

Ginger Rogers Finds a Bargain (1944), one of eight public service and promotional shorts featuring Hollywood stars, will be preserved by the George Eastman Museum.

Film That Rises to the Surface of Clarified Butter (1968), animation by Owen Land inspired by Tibetan mandalas (Anthology Film Archives).
Five films by A. Michael Noll (1964–1968), early 3-D computer animations (New York University).
Fleming Faloon (1963–64), experiment in portraiture by Owen Land (Anthology Film Archives).
Flight (1958/1959), Jordan Belson’s pure meditation on space: fluid and unfixed, where forms become free abstractions in motion (Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive).
From Spikes to Spindles (1976), Christine Choy’s documentary on the history and political awakening of Chinese Americans (Third World Newsreel).
Ginger Rogers Finds a Bargain (1944), promotional film for the 4th War Loan Drive (George Eastman Museum).
Highlanders Wedding (1961), amateur film documenting a reenactment of a traditional Polish Highlanders wedding, featuring authentic costumes, dances, songs, and traditional music (Polish Highlanders Alliance Foundation).
High Lights of a Day's Work Gradwohl School of Laboratory and X-Ray Technique, St. Louis, Missouri (1950), instructional film made by the founder of modern forensic science, Dr. Rutherford Birchard Hayes Gradwohl (Washington University in St. Louis).
Hoover Family Kodacolor Films (1928–35), personal home movies featuring President Herbert Hoover and family on vacations and at the White House (Herbert Hoover Presidential Library–Museum).
Invitation to Ohio (1964), promotional film sponsored by Ohio Bell Telephone and the Ohio Department of Development, featuring Governor Jim Rhodes and actor Wally Cox (Hagley Museum and Library).
It’s Nick! (1937–55), two decades of Filipino American family life featuring scenes of family celebrations, personal milestones, and public gatherings by amateur filmmaker Nicholas Viernes (Filipino American Historical Society of Chicago).
Joan Crawford Polio Trailer (1952), fundraising film for the Gonzales Warm Springs Foundation’s rehabilitative care for children with polio (George Eastman Museum).
Jocko’s New Haven (1976), documentary by Jacqueline Leger of musicians David Amram and John Hammond at Jocko Sullivan’s, a local music venue near Yale’s School of Art (Yale Film Archive).
Know for Sure (1941), Public Health Service short on the dangers of syphilis, directed by Lewis Milestone and featuring Ward Bond, Tim Holt, and Etta McDaniel (George Eastman Museum).
Know Thy Fellow Man (1937), Community Chest campaign film featuring Ethel Barrymore and Lowell Thomas (George Eastman Museum).
Lullaby (1988), animation by Kentucky filmmaker Ed Counts (Block Museum of Art).
Making is Choosing: A Fragment of Life: A Broken Line: A Series of Observations (1989), Chicano filmmaker Willie Varela’s meditative, autobiographical Super-8 feature (UCLA Film & Television Archive).
A Message from Mr. Gregory Peck (1948), promotional film for the Red Cross, produced by David O. Selznick (George Eastman Museum).
Mildred Keister Dennis Collection (ca.1940–55), home movies by a member of Knoxville’s high society and the local Better Films Committee (Knox County Public Library).

Eskimo Harvest (ca.1937), to be preserved by the University of Alaska Fairbanks, documents life in the Inupiat community of Wales (Kingigin), on Alaska's western coast.

Mobile, by Alexander Calder (1980), documentary featuring the creation and installation of Alexander Calder’s final major work, commissioned by the National Gallery of Art (National Gallery of Art).
Monterey Memories (1953), home movie of a family fishing trip by amateur filmmaker Betty Stefenel (Deserted Films).
Motion Pictures of Laboratory Technique as Taught in the Gradwohl School of Laboratory Technique (1936), promotional film showing daily activities at the school for forensic science (Washington University in St. Louis).
The New Jersey Meadowlands (1972), documentary by Phil Parmet exploring the intersection of nature and industry as seen through the eyes of individuals who live and work in the region (University of Pennsylvania Libraries).
The New World of Stainless Steel (1960), promotional film on stainless steel’s potential applications in everyday life, sponsored by Republic Steel (Chicago Film Archives).
No Sir, Orison! (1975), Owen Land’s palindromic juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane (Anthology Film Archives).
Pas de Bleu (1986), experiment with computer graphics by Kentucky animator Ed Counts (Block Museum of Art).
The Penetration of the Bellinghausen Sea: Operation Deep Freeze (1960), documentation by Robert Cushman Murphy, Head of the AMNH Dept. of Ornithology, of a U.S. Antarctic Research Program expedition (American Museum of Natural History).
The Peruvian Eclipse Expedition (1937), early color footage of a total solar eclipse, taken in 1937 by Clyde Fisher, founding curator of astronomy at the Hayden Planetarium (American Museum of Natural History).
Play Your Part (1940), Red Cross promotional film featuring Priscilla Lane (George Eastman Museum).
Portraits of the Fil Am Community (1940s), home movie by Nicholas Viernes depicting Filipino-American domestic life in the postwar Midwest (Filipino American Historical Society of Chicago).
Postal Club Picnic (1939), home movie by Nicholas Viernes featuring a baseball game and park picnic (Filipino American Historical Society of Chicago).
Raga (1958/1959), experimental film by Jordan Belson that visually interprets Indian raga utilizing kaleidoscopic lens filters and footage from his groundbreaking Vortex concerts (Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive).
Report to the U.S.A. (1946), promotional film for the United Service Organization, featuring Bob Hope (George Eastman Museum).
River is Boss (1973), visual poem of a Yukon spring flood and drum dance, made by state government filmmakers as a gift to the Yu’pik people of Emmonak, Alaska (Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association).
Rockers (1990), animation by Ed Counts, inspired by playful drawings of his wife and daughter (Block Museum of Art).
RV Carleton Collection (ca.1944-48), home movies of a pilot surveying and preparing Braniff International’s air routes to Central and South America (Texas Archive of the Moving Image).

The Walter A. Brooke Collection (1929), to be preserved by the Pan Am Historical Foundation, chronicles Charles Lindbergh (center, in gray suit) piloting the first intercontinental air route in American commercial aviation, to what is now Suriname.

Samadhi (1967), Jordan Belson’s visual meditation using mandalas and cosmological imagery to represent the meditative quest (Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive).
Santa Lucia, Naples (1897), short 60mm Italian travelogue shot by an employee of Burton Holmes (National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution).
Séance (1959), experimental film by Jordan Belson's that uses imagery and effects from the Vortex Concerts, with a sound composition by Pierre Schaeffer (Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive).
SN (1976–84), Fred Camper’s feature-length experimental Super 8mm portrait of New York City (Chicago Film Society).
Studies and Sketches in 8mm (1963–65), compilation of early experiments by Owen Land (Anthology Film Archives).
Sunday Morning (1971), experimental visual collage of a road trip down Massachusetts Route 1 by Jacqueline Leger (Yale Film Archive).
Technic of Blood Grouping and Blood Typing...and the Preparation of Blood Plasma (late 1940s), instructional film made by the founder of modern forensic science, Dr. Rutherford Birchard Hayes Gradwohl (Washington University in St. Louis).
Thank You Jesus For The Eternal Present (1973), Owen Land’s Christian experimental film featuring multiple superimpositions (Anthology Film Archives).
That’s the Way Life is Now (1970), documentation of the Yu’pik village of Emmonak’s concerns regarding Alaska native land claims (Alaska Moving Image Preservation).
Their Voices Rise (1946), docudrama based on the sociological research of author, psychologist, and educator, Dr. Ernst Bulova (Buck’s Rock Camp).
Things to Come (1955), experimental film by Jordan Belson that sets the abstract cosmic paintings of the artist Patricia Marx in motion (Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive).
This is Bob...4th War Loan... Hope (1944), promotional film for the 4th War Loan Drive (George Eastman Museum).
The Tombs (1973), Phil Parmet’s unflinching documentary on the inhumane conditions in New York City’s notorious prison region (University of Pennsylvania Libraries).
Top This (1995), animation by Kentucky filmmaker Ed Counts (Block Museum of Art).
Trumpeter Swans on their Breeding Grounds (1930), wildlife survey in Yellowstone National Park by biologist Joseph Dixon (National Park Service History Collection).
Two Women (1977), LA Rebellion filmmaker Carrol Parrott Blue’s first film, a deeply personal exploration of Black womanhood across generations (National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution).
The Van Slyke CO2 Test of Blood Plasma for Acidosis (1921), instructional film made by the founder of modern forensic science, Dr. Rutherford Birchard Hayes Gradwohl (Washington University in St. Louis).
V-J Day (1945), home movie by Nicholas Viernes featuring scenes of Chicago’s Victory Over Japan Day parade and a spirited softball game in Grant Park (Filipino American Historical Society of Chicago).
Walter A. Brooke Collection (1929), home movies of the pilot who accompanied Charles Lindbergh for the opening of American commercial aviation’s first intercontinental air route (Pan Am Historical Foundation).
Weak But Willing (1929), comedy short by Vaudeville dialect comedian Will King, featuring Jean Harlow (San Francisco Film Preserve).
Jean Harlow is a flirtatious nightclub-goer in Weak But Willing (1929), to be preserved by the San Francisco Film Preserve.
We Drive to Aunt Helen’s (at Corte Madera) (1948), amateur film by Betty Stefenel.with handcrafted titles and tinting (Deserted Films).
What’s Wrong With This Picture? 1 (1972), Owen Land’s mixed-media experiment exploring the relationship between spoken and written language (Anthology Film Archives).
What’s Wrong With This Picture? 2 (1973), 1950s educational film superimposed with its precise recreation by Owen Land (Anthology Film Archives).
Xmas Memories 1954 (1954), amateur film by Betty Stefenel featuring humorous antics narrated with handcrafted titles (Deserted Films).

PRESERVED FILMS

Bayshore Round-Up (1920)

2025 Federal Grant Winners

Preserved Films