Organization: National Film Preservation Foundation
Mission: The NFPF helps nonprofit and public organizations across all 50 states to preserve American films that are unlikely to survive without public support. Through our grants and projects, 2,489 films have been saved and made publicly available for education and exhibition.
Activities: Preserving American films through grants. Saved 74 titles through grants to 38 institutions. Among the films slated for preservation are James Baldwin: From Another Place (1973), a portrait of the writer in Istanbul; Haskell Wexlers The Bus (1965), a cinema verit documentary about activists attending the 1963 March on Washington; Hito Hata: Raise the Banner (1980), a dramatic feature starring Pat Morita; Listen to a Stranger: An Interview with Gordon Parks (1973), which shows the trailblazing photographer at home and directing Shafts Big Score (1973); Tellin the World (1972), a PSA made to encourage youth voting; footage of Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, the National Flying Farmers, and Operation Magic Carpet airlifting Yemenite Jews to Israel; and experimental films from Fred Camper, Victor Grauer, Beryl Sokoloff, Ed Emshwiller, Saul Levine, Edward Owens, and Weegee.
Repatriating American films unavailable in the U.S. The NFPF continued working on the partnership with the EYE Filmmuseum Netherlands to preserve and make available more than 50 American films that have been unseen for decades. An additional EYE title was added to the NFPF website accompanied by new music and program notes: The Village Chestnut (1918), a comedy about tangled classroom romances, directed by Raymond Griffith and starring Chester Conklin and Louise Fazenda.
Promoting film preservation through publications. The foundation produces DVD sets in the Treasures from American Film Archives series and books that advance national film preservation efforts. With support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, the NFPF continues production on Treasures 6: Next Wave Avant-Garde Film, a 5-hour DVD box set surveying 28 experimental filmmakersfrom Abigail Child to Phil Solomonwho rose to prominence after 1965. The sets release is planned for 2021. In addition, we continue to distribute The Film Preservation Guide (2004) and The Field Guide to Sponsored Films (2006), both of which can be downloaded for free.
NTEE category: Arts, Culture & Humanities
Secondary category: Human Services