First stop on the tour is Madison, Wisconsin, where the films will be shown at the Wisconsin Union Theater and Play Circle at the University of Wisconsin and the Oscar Mayer Theater at the Madison Civic Center beginning Friday, October 6. The Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska, will host the tour the weekend of November 3. Other locations will be announced as plans are finalized. The goal is to bring the tour to at least one city in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. A Study of the Current State of American Film Preservation.
Film is a fragile medium and motion pictures, both old and new, face inevitable destruction.
Of America's feature films of the 1920s, for example, fewer than 20 percent still exist. The majority of American films do not receive this type of care and are in critical need of preservation. Initial funding for the tour has been provided by the James Madison Council, the Library's private sector advisory board, and The Film Foundation, a group of leading film directors committed to film preservation. Motion picture studios have generously provided new prints of their titles. The preservation work of many organizations will be represented, including the Library, the UCLA Film and Television Archive, the Museum of Modern Art Film Department and the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House.