NFPF News

Lighter Than Air, Larger Than Life: The U.S.S. Akron Onscreen

Construction of the U.S.S. Akron, captured on film by the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company and preserved by the University of Akron with an NFPF grant.

The deadliest airship disaster in history was not the crash of the Hindenburg but the U.S.S. Akron, which claimed the lives of 73 crew members (nearly twice the body count of the Hindenburg disaster). Unlike the famous German zeppelin, the Akron’s demise was not immortalized on film, but its birth was, thanks to the motion picture department of its builder, the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company.

In 1928 Goodyear, in partnership with the German company Luftschiffbau Zeppelin, won a U.S. Navy contract to manufacture two rigid airships, to be designed by Luftschiffbau engineers led by the renowned Dr. Karl Arnstein. The first of these dirigibles, launched on Sept. 23, 1931, was the U.S.S. Akron. 785 feet long and with gas … Read more

Recently Completed Preservation Projects: Wayne State University Historic Films

A spirited game of pushball between WSU freshmen and sophomores captured on film in 1925.

Perhaps the most satisfying moment of a film preservation project is its completion, when an archivist can rest assured that the films are finally safeguarded. Fresh from the lab, the movies are now accessible to researchers and can be screened or digitized for the general public. The most recent example is Wayne State University’s preservation of two films shot on its campus (and in Detroit) in 1925 and 1932. Preserved through a 2015 NFPF Federal Grant, the footage provides an unvarnished, non-Hollywood look at what college life was like more than 80 years ago, with freshman vs. sophomore games (bloodshed included), a “Freshman Frolic,” Christmas festivals, costumed dances (one attendee is dressed as “the Forgotten Man,” a reference to a 1932 speech by President … Read more

Pioneers of African American Cinema

The Blood of Jesus (1941), directed by Spencer Williams.

A collection of foundational works of African American cinema will become available to the public on July 26, when the Blu-Ray/DVD set Pioneers of African American Cinema will be released by Kino Lorber. Comprised of twenty hours of footage on five discs, starting with shorts from over a 100 years ago, the set will be of special value to scholars and historians, since these important films have been difficult to view, especially in good quality.

In the first decades of African American cinema independently produced “race films” were made for black audiences. Between 1915 and 1952 more than 500 of them were made in the United States and shown in more than 1000 movie theaters, most of which were segregated. Because “race films” were made outside Hollywood they presented African American characters who were not stereotypical servants or comic … Read more

Daughter of Dawn on Blu-Ray

Daughter of Dawn (1920)

Films preserved through NFPF funding are always made available for public access, whether onsite or online, but some archives go further by partnering with a distributor to make a film available for film lovers to add to their collection. Such is the case with Daughter of Dawn (1920), to be released on Blu-Ray on July 19.

Named to the National Film Registry in 2013, this silent feature was preserved by the Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS), whose description is worth quoting:

“The story, played by an all-Indian cast of 300 Kiowas and Comanches, includes a four-way love story, two buffalo hunt scenes, a battle scene, village scenes, dances, deceit, courage, hand to hand combat, love scenes, and a happy ending. The Indians, who had been on the reservation less than fifty years, brought with them their own tipis, horses, clothing, and material culture. The lead actor is White Parker, … Read more

Preservation Projects: The L.A. Rebellion

Diary of an African Nun (1977), directed by Julie Dash.

Film preservation not only safeguards individual films, but can also preserve a film movement. An exciting example is UCLA Film & Television Archive’s preservation of films from the L.A. Rebellion.

Following the Watts Uprising of 1965 and ensuing racial tensions, UCLA met the demands of its students by instituting an Ethno-Communications initiative, which responded to the needs of communities of color and facilitated non-commercial filmmaking by artists such as Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, Larry Clark, Haile Gerima, and Billy Woodberry.

Their shared goal was to create authentic narratives about the black experience that avoided the stereotypes of Hollywood or the Blaxploitation genre. The films were influenced by study of “third world” cinema from Latin America and Africa, the French nouvelle vague, and postwar neorealist cinema. The … Read more