What is a regional moving-image archive?

The United States has no single national film archive. Instead, the national collection (as archivists call the aggregate of historic moving images in this country) exists in many collections, each with its own focus and institutional structure. Many have a regional mission.

Three areas of service stand out:

· preserving and providing access to moving images of regional interest;

· teaching about moving-image preservation in the region;

· helping films and related materials reach repositories whose missions match the content,

  thus ensuring the greatest support for their preservation and accessibility.

View a list of regional moving image archives in the United States (Acrobat PDF, 124 KB)

Is NHF funded by state or federal sources?

NHF relies heavily upon federal grants from agencies such as the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Film Preservation Foundation to fund its preservation work. Concerned with the shared culture of this region, NHF also forges links with individuals, within the region and beyond, who care about preserving moving images of northern New England's heritage and traditions.

What is the history of amateur film preservation?

The history of amateur film preservation is relatively short. View the Amateur Film Preservation Timeline online as a PDF file (Acrobat PDF, 1.35 MB). This timeline is a work-in-progress and suggestions for additional dates are welcome.

Do you take every film that you are offered?

Much of the film brought to NHF relates to northern New England. But other material also reaches our door, including dramas, newsreels, animated shorts, and comedies that are important because in the era represented very little survives. NHF's primary goal is preservation, and will work to find the appropriate home for material that may not be related to the region.

Examples of donated material include:

· The End of the Rainbow (1916), a Bluebird five-reel film, directed by Lynn Reynolds, who later

  directed Tom Mix films. Very little survives of Bluebird's output.

· The Simp and the Sophomores (1915), the earliest surviving film appearance of Oliver Hardy.

· The Romany Rye (1915), written and produced by Stanner Taylor, and In the King's Service

  (1915), starring Thomas Santschi, written by Conyers Converse; two Selig Polyscope films.

· Aladdin (1907), and Sambo as Footman (1909), Pathe, the latter a viciously racist film.

· A fragment of The Rogue Song (1930), a musical that is the only major lost title in MGM's

  sound-film output--one of the ten-most wanted lost feature films.

These and other films have been transferred to institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, the UCLA Film and Television Archives, the George Eastman House, and the Human Studies Film Archives. This activity places NHF between, on the one hand, its most important supporters, the interested public, and on the other, the established public archives from which NHF has learned how to operate.