Martin Scorsese's The Film Foundation

Martin Scorsese's The Film Foundation
Name	The Film Foundation
Formation	1990
Founder	Martin Scorsese
Type	Non-profit organization
Location	New York City
Services	Film preservation, restoration, education

Martin Scorsese's The Film Foundation Martin Scorsese's The Film Foundation is a non-profit organization established to preserve, restore, and provide access to motion picture heritage. Founded by Martin Scorsese, the foundation collaborates with archives, studios, museums, and filmmakers to conserve cinematic works from across global cinema history. Its activities span restoration projects, educational programming, and international partnerships that engage institutions such as the Library of Congress, British Film Institute, and Cineteca di Bologna.

History and founding

The Film Foundation was established in 1990 by Martin Scorsese with founding support from George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Clint Eastwood, and Akira Kurosawa sympathizers in the film community. Early allies included representatives from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Museum of Modern Art, the UCLA Film & Television Archive, and the George Eastman Museum. The foundation emerged during a period marked by preservation crises at institutions like the British Film Institute National Archive and the Cinémathèque Française, and in response to losses highlighted by organizations such as FIAF and the National Film Preservation Board. Initial efforts linked Scorsese with archivists from the Library of Congress Packard Campus, curators from the Cinematheque, and scholars from Columbia University and New York University.

Mission and preservation activities

The Foundation’s mission emphasizes film preservation, restoration, and access, partnering with institutions including the Film Foundation founders’ allies like the Academy Film Archive, the Roger Corman Collection, the National Film Board of Canada, and the BAVC. It supports technical activities involving photochemical restoration at labs such as L'Immagine Ritrovata and digital restorations overseen with teams from Deluxe Entertainment Services Group and Technicolor SA. Programming promotes works by filmmakers including Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Yasujiro Ozu, Satyajit Ray, Kenji Mizoguchi, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Pedro Almodóvar, Sergio Leone, Wong Kar-wai, Hayao Miyazaki, Robert Bresson, Jean-Luc Godard, and Akira Kurosawa.

Restoration projects and notable restorations

The Foundation has supported restorations of landmark films such as The Red Shoes, Singin' in the Rain, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Vertigo, Metropolis, The Passion of Joan of Arc, La Dolce Vita, 8½, The Battleship Potemkin, The General, Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather Part II, Chinatown, My Neighbor Totoro, The Third Man, Breathless, The 400 Blows, The Rules of the Game, The Leopard, Rome, Open City, Pather Panchali, The Round-Up, Persona, Blue Velvet, The Last Emperor, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Wages of Fear, Nosferatu, Ran, The Mirror, The Grand Illusion, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Wings, The Searchers, Seven Samurai, Modern Times, The Thin Man, The Wizard of Oz, Spirited Away, and Do the Right Thing. These projects were often executed with partners such as the Cineteca di Bologna, the Australian National Film and Sound Archive, the National Film and Sound Archive (Australia), the Filmoteca Española, the Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé, FIAF, and the George Eastman House. Restoration techniques referenced work at facilities like Colorlab, FotoKem, Eaton Film Labs, and institutions such as the British Film Institute National Archive.

Educational programs and outreach

Educational initiatives include the World Cinema Project-adjacent programs, filmmaker roundtables with participants such as Werner Herzog, Paul Schrader, Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant, Pedro Almodóvar, Wim Wenders, Spike Lee, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Guillermo del Toro, Ang Lee, Hayao Miyazaki, and Ken Loach. The Foundation organizes screenings at venues like the Museum of Modern Art, Lincoln Center, Tate Modern, Cannes Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, and Sundance Film Festival. Outreach extends to academic collaborations with Yale University, Harvard University, Princeton University, University of California, Los Angeles, New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Columbia University School of the Arts, and the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

Partnerships and collaborations

Notable institutional collaborations include the Library of Congress, British Film Institute, Cineteca di Bologna, MoMA, UCLA Film & Television Archive, George Eastman Museum, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, National Film Board of Canada, Filmoteca de la UNAM, Filmoteca Española, Fondazione Cineteca di Milano, CNC (France), EYE Filmmuseum, Cinemateca Portuguesa, Cinemateca Brasileira, Hong Kong Film Archive, Korean Film Archive, Shanghai Film Archive, and the Museum of the Moving Image. The Foundation also works with commercial studios such as Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and boutique distributors like The Criterion Collection, Kino Lorber, Janus Films, Arrow Films, and Criterion Channel.

Governance and funding

Governance features a board of trustees and advisory councils drawing figures from film and archival communities including representatives from Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Getty Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and private donors such as George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Funding sources combine philanthropy, grants from institutions like the Mellon Foundation and Knight Foundation, and in-kind contributions from partners such as Technicolor, Deluxe Entertainment Services Group, and film studios. Advisory input has come from archivists at the UCLA Film & Television Archive, curators at MoMA, and scholars affiliated with American Film Institute.

Impact and legacy

The Film Foundation’s impact includes saving and restoring significant works that shaped film history, influencing policies at the Library of Congress National Film Registry, contributing to the revival of interest in directors like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, D.W. Griffith, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Michelangelo Antonioni, Andrei Tarkovsky, Louis Malle, Satyajit Ray, and François Truffaut. Its legacy is evident in restored retrospectives at the Cannes Film Festival, curated seasons at MoMA, acquisition policies at the British Film Institute, and training programs at the Academy Film Archive. The Foundation’s work has helped secure UNESCO recognition trends championed by institutions such as UNESCO World Heritage Centre for cinematic heritage and inspired similar initiatives at the National Film Preservation Foundation and regional archives across Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

Category:Film preservation organizations