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been the major democratic art — represent together an Inconparable record of
a nation.
Preserving this important record has been central to the Film Institute's
purpose since the time of its creation. The announcement in June of 1957 by
the National Endowment for the Arts of the founding of the Americcin Film
Institute stated the mandate of the Film Institute with regard to preservation.
"Preservation and cataloging of films is a task which lies at the heart of the Film Institute ' s purpose. It is as important to conserve as to create, and the founders wish emphatically to bring attention, as others have before, to the necessity of preserving this Nation's film heritage."
This statement of purpose is still our guide. Our concern touches the entire spectrum of American Filmmaking. This program is limited by money, but our perception of its responsibilities is not. Our work is to assure that a broad cross section of the Americain film heritage is safeguarded properly in archives, and ultimately preserved. This will assure that future generations will be able to view, study, and enjoy the creative efforts that have gone into film and television.
In 1967, the principal institutions holding "nitrate" films — the Library of Congress, the National Archives, the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, the Museum of Modern Art and the UCLA Film Archives — held about 70 million feet of nitrate film needing preservation. The total preservation expenditures by all of these institutions in that year was no more than $150,000.
Since then, due in large part to the work of the AFI preservation program with funding support from the National Endowment for the Arts, over 4.6 million dollars in preservation funding has been administered by the AFI. The total of Federal and private expenditures since 1967 is 11.2 million dollars. This has enabled the preservation of about 42 million feet of nitrate, or roughly