NFPF News

Celebrate Thanksgiving "For Liberty and Union"

For Liberty and Union (1977)

Now available for public viewing on the NFPF website, For Liberty and Union is an example of sponsored filmmaking in the service of history. It is a dramatization of the 1861 convention that led to West Virginia breaking away from Confederate Virginia during the Civil War and becoming a new state. The film was sponsored by the West Virginia Independence Hall Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving and restoring the Wheeling Custom House, where Unionist delegates held their fateful convention. Produced by Larry Keating Productions and local filmmaker Ellis Dungan in 1977, For Liberty and Union was also filmed within the Custom House, whose restoration was nearing completion. Opened as a museum and rechristened the West Virginia Independence Hall, the building today screens the film for visitors. This online presentation is made … Read more

2017 NFPF Grants Announcement and Deadlines

Attention archivists! The National Film Preservation Foundation has just announced its 2017 federally funded grants, made possible by the Library of Congress Sound Recording and Film Preservation Programs Reauthorization Act of 2016.

The NFPF offers two types of federal cash grants that support the preservation of historically and culturally significant American “orphan” films.

The registration deadline for both is Friday, January 27, 2017.
Completed applications are due Friday, February 24, 2017.

Basic Preservation Grants fund laboratory work to create preservation masters and access copies, and are open to nonprofit and public institutions in the United States that provide public access to their film collections. Awards range from $1,000 to $18,000.

Matching Grants help experienced institutions undertake larger-scale projects; applicants may request cash stipends of between $18,001 and … Read more

The 2016 Association of American Moving Image Archivists Conference

Navajo Rug Weaving (1938-39), filmed by Tad Nichols.

From Nov. 9-12 Pittsburgh will host the annual conference of the Association of American Moving Image Archivists. This gathering, the largest of its kind in the nation, gives archivists a chance to meet, share information, and attend a host of panels, several of which touch upon NFPF projects.

A Nov. 11 panel on “The Eames Film Collection at the Library of Congress,” hosted by the Library’s Amy Gallick and Mike Mashon, will screen The Day of the Dead (1957), an Eames Studio short filmed in Mexico and preserved through NFPF funding. Earlier that day, archivists can also attend “Ongoing Intermediations: Preserving Jud Yalkut and Nam June Paik.” NFPF grants have helped save eight films created by this duo of media artists, along with eight solo films by Yalkut. The majority of the preservations were supervised by … Read more

More “Lost” Films Premiere at the NFPF Website

Happy Hooligan meets the Emperor in A Smashup in China (1919).

Now streaming are three more films from the NFPF’s ongoing partnership with EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. These newly preserved American silent films, unseen since their original release more than 90 years ago, are accompanied by new music and program notes.

Who’s Who (1910), an Essanay-produced comedy of mistaken identity, involves a minister and prizefighter—both with the initials S.O.B.—who arrive in town on the same train. The temperance spoof When Ciderville Went Dry (1915) is thought to be the only surviving work from the short-lived Esperanto Film Manufacturing Company of Detroit. Preservation of both films was supervised by the Library of Congress; each is accompanied by notes from comedy historian Steve Massa. The Academy Film Archive supervised the preservation of A Smashup in China (1919), a Happy … 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