The largest collaboration of its kind, Treasures will save a valuable cross-section of American filmmaking for the coming century. The Treasures initiative will preserve fragile newsreels, silent films, home movies, avant garde works, documentaries, and other unprotected independent productions. The project will make new preservation and access copies of films at participating archives, exhibit excerpts of these works at screenings during the year 2000, and produce a video set of rarely seen films for free distribution to state libraries and for sale to the public. Among the many works to be saved through Treasures will be outtakes of African American contralto Marian Anderson's 1939 outdoor concert at Washington's Lincoln Memorial, where she performed for a crowd of 75,000 and a radio audience of millions after being denied permission to sing at Constitution Hall because of her race. The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support the crucial efforts of this groundbreaking national collaboration which ensures the survival of our country's cultural memories.
Film is fragile.
For films made outside the commercial mainstream, preservationists are unable to determine how much has been lost. Only coordinated efforts will save the treasures of American filmmaking. For over 100 years, Americans have used film to express their personal visions and capture the vitality of our nation's history. The NFPF is honored to help these organizations work together to save our film heritage and share films with the public. America has been the leader in the 20th century art of filmmaking.