NFPF News

Now Online: 102 Films from the NFPF’s Field Guide to Sponsored Films

Frank Sinatra sings for religious tolerance in The House I Live In (1945).

Today the National Film Preservation Foundation launches an ambitious digital access project: an online screening room featuring more than 100 films from The Field Guide to Sponsored Films. Written by Rick Prelinger and published by the NFPF in 2006 through the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Field Guide was the first overview of the motion pictures commissioned during the past century by American businesses, charities, advocacy groups, and state and local government organizations. The annotated filmography singled out 452 sponsored films of particular historical, cultural, and artistic interest; now viewers can see 102 of them online. Almost all are in HD and available for free download, thanks to our partners at the Library of Congress and the Internet Archive.

Since … Read more

NFPF in the News: Herbert Hoover Home Movies Preserved in Iowa

President Herbert Hoover playing Hooverball, from Hoover Kodacolor Home Movies (1928–30).

In 2015 the NFPF awarded a grant to Iowa's Herbert Hoover Library-Presidential Museum to preserve a collection of 16mm home movies taken primarily by President Hoover’s wife, son, and daughter-in-law. Depicting family travels and various White House activities during the time of Hoover’s administration, the footage was shot in Kodacolor, a complicated early color process that required a special projector to show the films, which otherwise registered as black and white.

An NFPF grant allowed for the Hoover Library to send the films to Video & Film Solutions, which scanned and digitally decoded the films to restore their original color before preserving them on regular color filmstock, so they are now viewable in their original form. Acclaimed as perhaps the earliest color images of the White … Read more

NFPF Films at the UCLA Festival of Preservation

Production still from The Way of Peace: photographer, puppet designer, and producer Wah Ming Chang at work on a miniature, with art-director/producer Blanding Sloan.

This week marks the return of UCLA Film & Television Archive’s biennial Festival of Preservation. Playing all through March, the Festival showcases UCLA’s recent achievements in safeguarding and making available its many film treasures, five of which were preserved through recent NFPF grants.

The Murder of Fred Hampton (1971), Howard Alk and Mike Gray's documentary on the violent death of the leader of the Illinois Black Panther Party, will be preceded by The Jungle (1967), a vivid portrayal of Philadelphia street life starring and made by African American gang members. In 2009 it was named to the National Film Registry.

Also on the Registry is The Way of Peace (1947), an animated plea for pacifism written and directed … Read more

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

2017 Film Preservation Grants: Register by January 27

The NFPF is now accepting registrations for this year’s federally funded grants. We offer two types, which support the preservation of historically and culturally significant American “orphan” films. The registration deadline is Friday, January 27. Completed applications will be due Friday, February 24.

Basic Preservation Grants represent the most common cash grant offered by the NFPF. They fund laboratory work to create preservation masters and access copies of American films unlikely to survive without public support. They are awarded 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. Keep in mind that films created for video or television are ineligible. Before applying, please carefully review the Basic Grant guidelines.

Institutions that have successfully completed at least one NFPF-funded … Read more