NFPF News

Avant-Garde Masters Grants Preserve the Work of Four Filmmakers

Ariel (1983) by Nathaniel Dorsky

Early films by Nathaniel Dorsky, as well as works by Tatsu Aoki and Midwestern feminist filmmakers JoAnn Elam and Kathleen Laughlin will be preserved and made accessible through the 2024 Avant-Garde Masters Grants, awarded by The Film Foundation and the National Film Preservation Foundation with funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.

Four early works by renowned filmmaker Nathaniel Dorsky will be preserved by the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Fool’s Spring: Two Personal Gifts (1966-67), a birthday gift exchange between Dorsky and longtime partner and filmmaker Jerome Hiler, will be made available to the public for the first time. Pneuma (1977-83) and Ariel (1983) are experiments with the material and chemical properties of film, yielding vibrant abstractions of energy and color. Drawing on … Read more

Avant-Garde Masters Grants Set to Preserve Five Films

Caligari's Cure (1982) by Tom Palazzolo

A semi-autobiographical feature by Tom Palazzolo, two queer cinema classics by Michael Wallin, a subjective investigation of persona by Natalka Voslakov, and an abstract portrait of life by Ricardo Bloch and Sally Dixon will be preserved and made available through the 2023 Avant-Garde Masters Grants, awarded by The Film Foundation and the National Film Preservation Foundation. Funding is provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.

Chicago-based artist Tom Palazzolo's absurdist feature film, Caligari's Cure (1982), is both an irreverent retelling of Palazzolo's childhood and a loose adaptation of Robert Weine's 1919 classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The Village Voice film critic J. Hoberman wrote, "The brazen, comic-book mise-en-scène resembles that of Red … Read more

“Preserving the Avant-Garde” in San Francisco

This Monday the 4 Star Theater in San Francisco will screen a program of experimental films to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Avant Garde Masters grant program, a fruitful partnership between the NFPF and The Film Foundation.

Remembrance (1969), screening in the program "The Film Foundation: Preserving the Avant-Garde."

Screening as part of the series “Scorsese: More than a Gangster,” the program is titled “The Film Foundation: Preserving the Avant-Garde.” Started in 1990 by Martin Scorsese, The Film Foundation has furthered the cause of film preservation by ensuring the survival of nearly 1,000 works of world cinema. Among these are 214 works (by 83 artists) preserved through Avant Garde Masters grant program, which is supported by the Film Foundation, administered by the NFPF, and receives funding from the Hobson/Lucas Family … Read more

NFPF-Preserved Films at the Century of 16mm Conference

Multiple SIDosis (1970), one of eight films screening in the Century of 16mm program “16mm Orphan Films Preserved through the National Film Preservation.”

In 1923 Eastman Kodak introduced 16mm nonflammable film and radically changed the history of filmmaking, which became affordable and feasible to millions. The new format facilitated the rise of home movies and amateur moviemaking. Filmmaking was no longer the preserve of well-heeled industries—16mm democratized it.

To celebrate this momentous anniversary, the Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive has organized “A Century of 16mm,” which includes an academic conference, commissioned films, exhibitions of 16mm technologies, and screenings.

Among the conference programs, scheduled for Thursday, September 14th, is “16mm Orphan Films Preserved through the National Film … Read more

Seven Films to be Preserved Through Avant-Garde Masters Grants

Plumb Line (1971) by Carolee Schneemann.

A portrait of a drag artist by Heather McAdams, a structural film by Lawrence Gottheim, two evocations of city/ landscapes by Allen Downs, and three works by Carolee Schneemann will be preserved and made available through the 2022 Avant-Garde Masters Grants, awarded by The Film Foundation and the National Film Preservation Foundation.

Chicago-based alternative cartoonist Heather McAdams assembled her films from found footage, viewing pop culture’s scraps through an anarchic feminist lens. While teaching in Lexington, Kentucky, McAdams befriended Bradley Harrison Picklesimer, owner of a drag bar/nightclub on Main Street. Assembled “like a crazy quilt,” to quote McAdams, Meet…Bradley Harrison Picklesimer (1988) scrambles found and direct footage to cover its … Read more