NFPF News

The NFPF Presents “Saving Orphan Films”

Faces & Fortunes (1959), one of seven NFPF grant films screening at the Wexner Center for the Arts.

On Saturday, February 25, a screening of films preserved through the NFPF will take place at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio. Titled “Saving ‘Orphan’ Films,” it’s one of several programs scheduled for the Center’s “Cinema Revival: A Festival of Film Restoration.”

The screening will be introduced by NFPF Executive Director Jeff Lambert, who in a recent interview by the Wexner Center’s blog discusses the mission of the NFPF and its work. He also touches upon the films that will be screened in 35mm and 16mm, whose variety demonstrates the wide range of films preserved by our grant programs. The titles are:

• Fifty Million Years Ago (1925), an introduction to the theory of evolution told through stop-motion animation. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive.

• Faces & Fortunes … Read more

NFPF Screening at the Exploratorium

Butterfly (1967) by Shirley Clarke and her daughter Wendy (pictured above).

On Thursday, October 20, the Exploratorium in San Francisco presents “Seasons of Unrest: Activist Filmmaking in the Vietnam Era,” an evening of films that explore the divided and fractious state of the union during the late 1960s and onward. All six films were preserved through National Film Preservation Foundation grants by archives across the country and will be presented via sparkling new 16mm prints. Despite the passage of four decades, these works remain compellingly relevant. The roster includes:

• The Jungle (1967), a vivid portrayal of Philadelphia street life starring and made by African American gang members, named to the National Film Registry in 2009. Preserved by UCLA Film & Television Archive.
• Young Braves (1968), a student-produced ethnographic study and a celebration of a group of Puerto Rican teens in … Read more

When Buster Keaton Met Samuel Beckett: FILM and NOTFILM

Buster Keaton caught by the camera in FILM (1965).

Sometimes preservation can give a film a second life, or even inspire a movie about it. A case in point is FILM (1965), an avant-garde short that united two great 20th-century artists: Samuel Beckett and Buster Keaton.

Producer Barney Rosset, founder of Grove Press and Beckett’s publisher, envisioned producing a trilogy of short films written by his most famous clients, but only Beckett’s script made it to the big screen. It remains the only movie written by the Nobel Prize–winning author/playwright, who closely supervised the Brooklyn-set production during his only trip to America. Director Alan Schneider was a longtime Beckett collaborator who had staged the first American production of Waiting for Godot, while the cinematographer was Oscar-winner Boris Kaufman (On the Waterfront).

The star, in one of his last major roles, was … Read more

NFPF Preserved Film Screenings

The title card of Lyman H. Howe’s Famous Ride on a Runaway Train (1921).

The NFPF blog awakens from its winter hibernation to bring you news of two NFPF-related screenings. This Wednesday, February 24, Executive Director Jeff Lambert will present “NFPF Preservation Highlights,” consisting of films saved through our grant programs (or appearing on our Treasures DVDs) at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, California. Jeff will provide an overview of the NFPF’s activities and will introduce eight movies representing the wide range of our projects, with highlights such as Notes on the Port of St. Francis (1951), Frank Stauffacher’s poetic portrait of San Francisco, narrated by Vincent Price, and Lyman H. Howe’s Famous Ride on a Runaway Train (1921), a thrill-packed novelty short filmed from the train that inspired America’s first roller coasters. The film, accompanied with its vintage sound-effects disc, … Read more

NFPF Preserved Films at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto

Anna May Wong in Drifting (1923).

Held annually in Pordenone, northern Italy, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto is the biggest and most prestigious silent film festival in the world. The 34th edition, beginning October 3, will showcase five films preserved through the NFPF’s grant programs.

From George Eastman House come two premieres of recently completed restorations. Thirty Years of Motion Pictures (1927) is a film adaptation of pioneering producer and publicist Terry Ramsaye's history book on the early movie industry, A Million and One Nights (1926). The documentary includes scenes from lost films such as D.W. Griffith’s 1914 version of The Battle of the Sexes.

Drifting (1923) is Todd Browning’s underworld saga about opium smuggling in China, starring Priscilla Dean, Wallace Beery, and Anna May Wong. GEH has restored the film by drawing on a nitrate print from the Nardoni Film … Read more