UCLA Festival of Preservation

FROM THE DIRECTOR

As director of UCLA Film & Television Archive, it is my great pleasure to introduce the 2011 UCLA Festival of Preservation. We have worked to put together a program that reflects the broad and deep efforts of UCLA Film & Television Archive to preserve and restore our national moving image heritage.

Our Festival opens with the restoration of Robert Altman’s Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982), funded through our good friends at The Film Foundation and The Hollywood Foreign Press Association. This is the first fruit of a new, larger project, funded by The Film Foundation, to preserve Mr. Altman’s artistic legacy. Another more recent film is Barbara Loden’s Wanda (1970), an unjustly neglected independent masterpiece, restored by senior preservationist, Ross Lipman, with funding from The Film Foundation in association with GUCCI.

Moving backwards in time, we present several films noir, restored by preservationist Nancy Mysel, including the recently rediscovered gem Cry Danger (1951), starring Dick Powell, and Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950), featuring James Cagney in his last gangster role.

Our newsreel preservationists, Blaine Bartell and Jeff Bickel, present their restoration of the classic John Steinbeck documentary, The Forgotten Village (1941), while senior preservationist Jere Guldin has restored two silents directed by Rex Ingram, both previously considered lost: The Chalice Of Sorrrow (1916) and The Flower of Doom (1917). And our senior most preservationist Robert Gitt, will unveil two new programs of Vitaphone shorts, preserved in cooperation with Warner Brothers.

This year we have also expanded our preservation of classic television. In cooperation with the Righteous Persons Foundation we will present three episodes of Ralph Edwards’ This is Your Life, which discussed the Holocaust for the first time on American television. On a lighter note, we also highlight two television musical specials starring Gene Kelly.

The Archive’s internationally recognized preservationists will appear in person at many Festival screenings to introduce the films and discuss their work with audiences.

Before the Festival ends, UCLA Film & Television Archive will also go live with our new website. The new site will be interactive, offering information, blogs and streaming film clips. Be sure to visit: www.cinema.ucla.edu.

All of our preservation work and public programs—including this Festival—are funded by donations from individuals, foundations, corporations, and government agencies. We are most thankful for the generosity of these organizations and individuals.

Dr. Jan-Christopher Horak
Director
UCLA Film & Television Archive

 

For more information and the complete schedule on this month-long Festival of Preservation: http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/
A nice article in the LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-preservation-festival-20110303,0,562416.story