NFPF News

74 Films to Be Saved Through the 2019 NFPF Preservation Grants!

James Baldwin: From Another Place (1973) will be preserved by the Yale Film Study Center with NFPF support.

The National Film Preservation Foundation is proud to announce the films slated for preservation through its annual federally funded grant program. These grants will allow 35 institutions across 19 states and the District of Columbia to preserve 74 films from their collections. The selection includes James Baldwin: From Another Place (1973), a portrait of the legendary writer filmed during his residence in Istanbul, and Haskell Wexler’s The Bus (1965), a cinema verité documentary that follows an integrated group of activists journeying from San Francisco to attend the 1963 March on Washington.

Also focusing on social issues and the achievements of people of color are Wataridori: Birds of Passage (1976), a documentary celebration of the Issei, the pioneering first … Read more

“Amazing Tales from the Archives” at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival

Vice takes its toll in Opium (1919).

On Thursday, May 2, the National Film Preservation Foundation will co-present “Amazing Tales from the Archives” at the San Francisco Silent Festival. This free lecture program, begun in 2006, features archivists from around the world presenting field reports on new and exciting preservation projects. This year audiences will enjoy four presentations from leading film preservationists and scholars.

Starting from the formative years of cinema, researcher Thierry Lecointe and SFSFF President Robert Byrne will reveal cinematic discoveries from turn-of-the-century flipbooks. Next, Munich Filmmuseum director Stefan Drössler will guide the audience through the restoration of Opium (1919). Directed by Robert Reinert and starring Werner Krauss and Conrad Veidt, this exotic, hallucinatory tale of addiction and betrayal among doctors … Read more

Register for a 2019 NFPF Grant by March 22!

Friday, March 22 marks the registration deadline for the National Film Preservation Foundation’s federally funded grant program, 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 films. Completed applications will be due Friday, April 26, 2019.

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. Please note the awards have increased this year and now range from $1,000 to $20,000.

Matching Grants help experienced institutions undertake larger-scale projects; applicants may request cash stipends of between $20,001 and $75,000 to fund … Read more

Now Online: Harry Carey, Christopher Walken, and Code Blue

Christopher Walken knows many secrets as The Boy Who Saw Through (1958).

The National Film Preservation Foundation wishes you a festive holiday season! Should you wish to celebrate with some eclectic home viewing, take a look at three additions to our Online Screening Room: the urban western Soft Shoes (1925), starring Harry Carey; The Boy Who Saw Through (1958), produced by the legendary animator Mary Ellen Bute and starring a 14-year-old Christopher Walken; and Code Blue (1972), an inspiring recruitment film for minorities in the medical profession, produced by Blackside Inc., the company behind Eyes on the Prize. Taken as a set, these titles testify to the variety of films preserved through our grant program.

Recently rediscovered at the Czech National Film Archive, Soft Shoes is a charming short feature starring Harry Carey as a small-town sheriff who visits San … Read more

Now Online: Six More Films from the EYE Project

Oliver Hardy menaces Jimmy Aubrey in The Backyard (1920).

A rich mix of fiction and non-fiction films has joined the NFPF website’s screening room. All are freshly preserved products of the NFPF’s ongoing partnership with EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. Unseen since their original release more than 90 years ago, these movies are accompanied by new music from acclaimed silent film accompanists Stephen Horne, Ben Model, and Michael Mortilla, and by program notes from scholars and film experts. The preservation and web presentation of the nonfiction films was made possible through a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Two comedies were preserved under the direction of the Library of Congress and are presented with notes from silent comedy historian Steve Massa. The Backyard (1920) is a Vitagraph studio comedy, featuring a pre-Laurel Oliver Hardy as the villain, set … Read more