Foundation Set to Preserve American Film

Eight top filmmakers--Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Francis Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas, Sydney Pollack, Robert Redford and Steven Spielberg--announced Tuesday the creation of the Film Foundation, dedicated to ensuring the survival of the American film heritage.

Scorsese, president of the foundation’s board of directors, said at a news conference at Creative Artists Agency in Beverly Hills: “When filmmakers in the 21st Century ask what was done to preserve the pictures made in this century, they will look to us. As friends and colleagues who have been concerned about film preservation for many years, we have come together now as filmmakers to assure that 50 years from now we’ll be able to give an affirmative answer to our successors.”

The Film Foundation hopes to make the public more aware of the value of preserving film history; to work with five major archives in the United States to raise funds for preservation; to bring the archives and the movie industry together on preservation projects; and to insure preservation practices are in place on current productions. The foundation hopes to encourage the creation of a $30-million studio preservation fund for restoration projects.

Leaders from the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Center for Film and Video Preservation at AFI, and the UCLA Film and Television Archive will advise the foundation. UCLA’s Bob Rosen will chair the Archivists Advisory Council.

The foundation has its work cut out. More than 50% of the movies produced in America since 1950 no longer exist in any form and countless others are endangered, the foundation said.