AFI National Center for Film and Video Preservation

America and the world now face the danger of losing forever many of the moving images that have become the collective memory of the 20th century. Many have already vanished. Of the more than 21,000 feature-length films produced in the United States before 1951, only half exist today. The rest have been lost or destroyed or have deteriorated beyond repair. For newsreels, documentaries, and television programs, the survival rate is even less than half.

The National Center for Film and Video Preservation at The American Film Institute is at the forefront of international efforts to keep our moving image heritage from disappearing.

The National Center for Film and Video Preservation was established in 1984 by the American Film Institute and the National Endowment for the Arts. Its mission is to:

• Serve as the center for coordinating American moving image preservation activities on a national scale.
  THE FILM FOUNDATION
  THE ASSOCIATION OF MOVING IMAGE ARCHIVISTS
  
  
• Research and publish the AFI Catalog of Feature Films, which provides definitive filmographies on all feature-length motion pictures produced in the U.S. on a decade-by-decade basis.
  AFI CATALOG OF FEATURE FILMS
  
  
• Locate and acquire films and television programs for inclusion in the AFI Collection to be preserved at the Library of Congress and other archives.
  AFI COLLECTION
  
  
• Create broader public awareness of preservation needs.
  
  
• Establish ongoing relationships between the public archives and the film and television industry.