NFPF Awards Film Preservation Grants to 22 Archives

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41 films will be preserved through grants announced today by the National Film Preservation Foundation, enabling 22 archives, libraries, historical societies, and museums to save historically significant American films unlikely to survive without public support. The grant winners include Beasts of the Jungle (1913), an adventure saga by the first woman film director, Alice Guy-Blaché; documentation of the spectacular 1940 collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (“Galloping Gertie”); and Prairie Fire (1977), John Hanson and Rob Nilsson’s documentary dramatization about the Nonpartisan League, the North Dakota-based grassroots movement begun in 1915 to fight the abusive practices of Eastern banks and railroads.


Among the other films selected for preservation are Carnival in Trinidad (1953) by fashion photographer Fritz Henle; the Academy Award–nominated short Luther Metke at 94 (1980), profiling Oregon’s master log-cabin builder; Carib Gold (1956), a sunken-treasure adventure made for African American audiences and featuring Ethel Waters and Cicely Tyson in her film debut; Navajo Rug Weaving (1938–39) by Tad Nichols; Andy Warhol’s Velvet Underground Tarot Cards (1966); The Story of Creative Capital (1957), an animated demonstration of how capitalism works; avant-garde films by Dorsey Alexander, James Benning, Bette Gordon, Amos Poe, Dion Vigne, Natalka Voslakov; and home movies showing the construction of Montana’s Fort Peck Dam, Alaskan mining in the 1930s, and the racing exploits of country star Marty Robbins.

Films saved through the NFPF programs are made available for on-site research and are seen widely through screenings, exhibits, DVDs, television broadcasts, and the Internet. The grants fund the creation of a preservation master and two public viewing copies of each film. The awards are made possible through federal funds authorized by The Library of Congress Sound Recording and Film Preservation Programs Reauthorization Act of 2008 and secured through the Library of Congress.

The grants also distribute preservation services contributed by public-spirited laboratories and postproduction houses. Donating services this year are: Audio Mechanics, BluWave Audio, Chace Audio, Colorlab Corp., DJ Audio, and Film Technology Company, Inc.



The National Film Preservation Foundation is the nonprofit organization created by the U.S. Congress to help save America’s film heritage. Since starting operations in 1997, the NFPF has provided film preservation support to 202 institutions across 48 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The NFPF is the charitable affiliate of the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress.



For the complete list of projects supported by the NFPF, visit the NFPF Web site: www.filmpreservation.org.

Ihsan Amanatullah
Programs Assistant
National Film Preservation Foundation