Nitrate Film Makes A Comeback
posted July 27, 2016
Wheeler Winston Dixon applauds the return of nitrate-film projection to the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles. He writes: "Projecting nitrate is certainly not without risk – it’s highly flammable, and needs to be treated with the greatest care during projection and preservation – but for more than half a century it was the dominant medium for film production, and for quality of image, it simply is in a class by itself."
The Fight for Rights on The Streets of Greenwood
posted July 11, 2016
In their 1963 documentary The Streets of Greenwood, a group of young film-makers provided a close-up view of a Mississippi voter-registration drive, of citizens claiming their basic rights, and of a rally that lifted the spirits of harassed activists.
Joel Archer’s Quest for Film Revival
posted June 27, 2016
In Queensland, Joel Archer brings elderly audiences alive with the movies of their heydays – then he goes out and scours aging or abandoned cinemas for missing screen gems. And he has found some memorable ones.
Ruby Bridges, 6, Symbol of Desegregation
posted June 3, 2016
Thanks to a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation, Amistad Research Center will restore and make accessible rare footage of Ruby Bridges, a little girl who in 1960 found herself at the forefront of school desegregation in New Orleans.
Animating the Hangman
posted May 31, 2016
The Animation Show of Shows has received a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation to preserve "Hangman" (1964), a cautionary animated adaptation of Maurice Ogden’s poem about a town that allows its citizens be executed one by one. Finding the elements of the film has entailed a search that demonstrates the heartening results that film-restoration devotees can achieve when they go terrier-like after their quarry.
Yale to Preserve Documentarian Nick Doob
posted May 24, 2016
Nick Doob has been in the forefront of American documentary-film making for decades, and now the films he made while a college student are being preserved by his alma mater, thanks to a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation.
39 Institutions Receive Preservation Grants
posted May 18, 2016
In its 2016 round of preservation grants, the National Film Preservation Foundation has awarded grants to 39 institutions to ensure the survival of 64 films, among them "The Streets of Greenwood" (1963), a documentary about civil rights activists registering African American voters in Mississippi, and James Blue’s "The Olive Trees of Justice" (1962), about the torn loyalties of an Algerian/French man during the Algerian civil war, which won a prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
A Vengeful, but Oddly Unsorrowful Belladonna
posted May 17, 2016
A restoration of a monument of Japanese anime film does it great honor, visually, and prompts some questions about representations of sexual assault, perpetrator presumption, and much else. Eiichi Yamamoto’s 1973 animated Belladonna of Sadness has long been “simply the most beautiful and transcendent film I knew in proportion to both its obscurity, and
How to Break into Movies — in 1907
posted April 12, 2016
With a long-ago birthday present from his grandmother, Darren Nemeth, a Michigan early-film enthusiast, has been able to publish a refurbished edition of a 1907 catalog that told traveling film exhibitors everything they needed to know if they were to succeed in the burgeoning business.
Who Is Crazy? Always a Good Question
posted March 31, 2016
"Who's Crazy?," a 1965 film by Thomas White, a young American in Paris with performances by members of the Living Theater and soundtrack by Ornette Coleman, has turned up in a New York garage, and has been restored to throw light on experimental cinema of its day.