Filmmakers for Film Preservation

Created in 1990, The Film Foundation is a group of filmmakers dedicated to ensuring the survival of the American film heritage. The members of the Foundation's Board of Directors are Martin Scorsese (President), Woody Allen, Francis Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas, Sydney Pollack, Robert Redford, and Steven Spielberg. Clint Eastwood joined the Board of Directors in 1996. Each director has been involved in the film preservation cause in the past. With The Film Foundation, they joined together as a group to work as creative artists dedicated to the principle that as filmmakers they have a special responsibility both to the work of the past masters of their art and to the motion pictures which they and their peers are creating today.

The Film Foundation began with four primary goals: In all of its activities it will foster a greater awareness with the general public of the urgent need to preserve motion picture history; the Foundation will work with the archives to raise funds for preservation; the Foundation will encourage cooperative preservation projects, bringing together the archives and the industry; and it will work to ensure that reliable preservation practices are in place for current productions.

The Foundation is advised on the establishment of goals and policies by its Archivists Advisory Council, made up of leaders from the nation's five major film archives. Chaired by Robert Rosen from UCLA, the institutions represented on the Council include the American Film Institute's National Center for Film And Video Preservation, the George Eastman House, the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, the UCLA Film and Television Archive, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The Foundation is administered by Executive Director Raffaele Donato and Administrative Director Margaret Bodde.

One of the major accomplishments of the Foundation has been its collaboration with American Movie Classics cable channel to raise over $1 million for film preservation through AMC's annual Film Preservation Festival. Money raised from the festivals is donated to the Foundation, which distributes funds to the five major film archives and, via the AFI, to an even broader range of regional archives and special collections for the preservation and restoration of short and full-length motion pictures.

Archivists Advisory Council
Robert Rosen, Chair
Mary Lea Bandy, Museum of Modern Art
Paolo Cherchi Usai, George Eastman House
David Francis, Library of Congress
Edward Richmond, UCLA Film and Television Archive
Michael Friend, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences