From: Adam Hart (email suppressed)
Date: Wed May 13 2009 - 21:46:47 PDT
This is fantastic news. Rappaport's work deserves all the attention that it
can get, and his long-unavailable films from the 70s are amazing. Let's hope
this starts a trend, and maybe "The Scenic Route" will get the treatment
sometime soon. Kudos to Eastman and the NPFF.
On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 11:14 PM, C Keefer <email suppressed> wrote:
> 2009 AVANT-GARDE MASTERS GRANTS ANNOUNCED BY THE NFPF AND THE FILM
> FOUNDATION
>
> San Francisco, CA (April 23, 2009) — Mark Rappaport’s Local Color (1977), a
> deadpan melodrama about hopelessly interconnected lives, and five other
> landmark experimental films will soon be saved thanks to Avant-Garde Masters
> Grants from the National Film Preservation Foundation and The Film
> Foundation. Recipients of the $50,000 award are George Eastman House,
> Anthology Film Archives, Center for Visual Music, and the Harry Ransom
> Center of the University of Texas at Austin.
>
> Heralded by film critic Roger Ebert as a “strange and wonderful movie,”
> Local Color spins a mordant tale about eight individuals trapped in a web of
> intertangled relationships and dreams. As complications beget complications,
> the line between “real” and “surreal” grows increasingly hard to draw.
> George Eastman House will collaborate with the filmmaker to preserve the
> 16mm feature from the original source materials.
>
> Also selected for preservation are three surrealist shorts by San Francisco
> artist Sidney Peterson (Anthology Film Archives); Norman Mailer’s first
> film, an untitled profile of a desperate woman considering an illegal
> abortion (University of Texas at Austin); and an early multi-projector piece
> by experimental animator Oskar Fischinger (Center for Visual Music).
>
> The Avant-Garde Masters Grants are the first awards targeting the
> preservation of American experimental film. Funded by The Film Foundation
> and managed by the National Film Preservation Foundation, the program
> encourages archives to work directly with filmmakers to save works
> significant to the development of the avant-garde in America. Since 2003,
> the annual grants have preserved films by Kenneth Anger, Samuel Beckett,
> Rudy Burckhardt, Abigail Child, Tom Chomont, Bruce Conner, Hollis Frampton,
> Ernie Gehr, Larry Gottheim, George and Mike Kuchar, Gregory Markopoulos,
> Jonas Mekas, Tom Palazzolo, Larry Rivers, Carolee Schneemann, Frank
> Stauffacher, Andy Warhol, and Lawrence Weiner. The full roster of projects
> is posted on the NFPF Web site, www.filmpreservation.org.
>
> The National Film Preservation Foundation is the nonprofit organization
> created by the U.S. Congress to help save America’s film heritage. The NFPF
> has supported film preservation in 46 states and the District of Columbia
> and has helped save more than 1,420 films and collections. The NFPF is the
> charitable affiliate of the National Film Preservation Board of the Library
> of Congress.
>
> The Film Foundation is a nonprofit organization established in 1990 by
> Martin Scorsese. The foundation is dedicated to protecting and preserving
> motion picture history, and provides substantial annual support for
> preservation and restoration projects at the leading film archives. Through
> its preservation and education programs, the foundation is instrumental in
> raising awareness of the urgent need to preserve films and has helped to
> save over 525 motion pictures. Joining Scorsese on the board are: Woody
> Allen, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Francis Ford Coppola, Clint
> Eastwood, Curtis Hanson, Peter Jackson, Ang Lee, George Lucas, Alexander
> Payne, Robert Redford, and Steven Spielberg. The Film Foundation is aligned
> with the Directors Guild of America, whose President and Secretary-Treasurer
> serve on the foundation’s board.
>
> ****
> (end PR)
>
> CVM thanks the NFPF and The Film Foundation for their support of our
> preservation of Fischinger's 35mm nitrate b/w and tinted film experiments
> from his 1926-1929 Raumlichtkunst multiple projector performances.
>
> best regards,
> Cindy Keefer
> Center for Visual Music
> www.centerforvisualmusic.org
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.