25 Additions to the National Film Registry
posted December 20, 2018
U.S. Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced on 12 December 2018 the annual selection of 25 influential American motion pictures to be added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Induction marks films’ cultural, historic, and aesthetic importance to the nation’s film heritage, and being added to the registry ensures that chosen films are permanently preserved.
Home Movie Day 2018 is Here
posted October 20, 2018
Your family members and friends may blanch at the idea of sitting through your home movies, but plenty of people do want to see them – so much so that the Center for Home Movies holds an annual event to facilitate and encourage the sharing of such records of everyday life. This year, takes place today, Saturday, 20 October. Events are being held around the world over this weekend, while other events take place throughout the year.
CLIR Helps Preserve Collections at Risk
posted October 13, 2018
Film of key events in late-1960s political life, footage of Native American song and ceremony, and audiovisual records of diasporic Jewish life in India and other nations are to be preserved thanks to grants from the nonprofit Council on Library and Information Resources. Those films are among the collections of audiovisual content of high scholarly value that have recently received financial support as part of the CLIR’s Recordings at Risk grant program.
Library of Congress Launches Its National Screening Room
posted September 26, 2018
Rare glimpses of George and Ira Gershwin working and socializing… Mid-20th century newsreels made for African-American audiences… Paper prints of D.W. Griffith shorts… Footage of the likes of Theodore Roosevelt, William McKinley, and Frank Sinatra… Those are among hundreds of hours of motion pictures that The Library of Congress has digitized and made freely available on its newly launched National Screening Room website.
Funds for Collections on Black Champions, Yu’Pik Life, and Censorship
posted July 16, 2018
The National Historical Publications and Records Commission has announced 31 grants to archives to preserve moving-image collections. The awards, announced by David S. Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, totaled over $4-million. Grants relating to moving-image collections went to Washington University’s William Miles collection, Bethel Broadcasting in Alaska, Indiana State Library, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, and Rutgers University of New Jersey’s Papers of Thomas A. Edison project.
The Fuentes Family: Pioneer Home-Film Makers
posted December 22, 2017
Fluid migration has long shaped the Southwest of the United States — certainly since well before the U.S. fashioned the region from large tracts of Mexico during a military invasion in the 1840s, and certainly ever since. Unfortunately, even after the invention of moving film, audiovisual records of Mexican-American life were rare; but the Library of Congress has just designated a collection of home movies from border life during the 1920s as worthy of permanent preservation.
2017 Additions to the National Film Registry Announced
posted December 13, 2017
Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden today (13 December) announced the 2017 selections to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Each year, films are selected for their cultural, historic and/or aesthetic importance. Films in the National Film Registry are selected not as the “best” American films, but as works of enduring importance to American culture. The Librarian of Congress makes the annual selections to the Registry after reviewing hundreds of titles nominated by the public and conferring with Library film curators and members of the National Film Preservation Board.
Films from the National Film Registry Go Online, Free
posted December 12, 2017
To mark the holiday season, the U.S. Library of Congress has made 64 motion pictures that are on its National Film Registry freely available. The films in "Selections from the National Film Registry,” which are available online on the Library’s website, as well as on YouTube, are among hundreds that the Library has designated as worthy of permanent preservation due to their cultural, historical and aesthetic significance.
Today is World Day for Audiovisual Heritage
posted October 26, 2017
Today (27 October) is World Day for Audiovisual Heritage. The 2017 theme is "Discover, Remember, and Share." Sharing is what many archives around the world are doing, in varied activities, to bring members of the public and film-archive specialists together to mark the contributions of audiovisual-preservation professionals and institutions. The many, varied events illustrate the range of activities that archives undertake.
Mexican Film Archive Struck by Major Earthquake
posted September 25, 2017
The major earthquake that struck Mexico City and surrounding areas on September 19 caused loss of at least 319 lives, and destroyed many buildings including thousands of homes. Among structures seriously damaged by the tremor was Permanencia Voluntaria Film Archive, the only independent film archive in Mexico specializing in the collection and preservation of popular films. It is located in Tepoztlán, the epicenter of the quake, an hour from the capital.