Pacific Film Archive And The Bancroft Library Create The Film Arts Foundation Collection

PRLog (Press Release) – Aug 25, 2008 – San Francisco, CA – The Board of the Film Arts Foundation takes great pleasure in announcing their agreement with the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, to house FAF's important archives.

This historic collection comprises over 3,091 media files including 2,000 video copies of films documenting the work of filmmakers either sponsored by or donated to the Film Arts Foundation over their 32 years of activity in the Bay Area.  Additionally, books, periodicals, photos, posters, festival records, programs, articles, and historical records will be available for study purposes.

Conceived over 35 years ago as an American version of the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, the Pacific Film Archive (PFA) has earned an international reputation as a premier center for the study and appreciation of the moving image. The PFA Library and Film Study Center is an invaluable resource for film research and education. It offers students, faculty and the public access to PFA's film and video collections as well as to extensive research collections. The Bancroft Library houses one of the most prestigious collections of material in the country documenting California and the American West providing a unique, historical resource for scholars. It is important to note that the videos and all other archival material at both PFA and the Bancroft Library will be available for on-site reference use only.

PFA has a strong interest in receiving as complete a collection as possible to best reflect FAF's funded projects. Our mutual agreement going forward includes a six-month transition period from August 21st, 2008, in which the FAF archival gift will be regarded as a “Deposit.”  This means that those filmmakers who might wish to withdraw their work, currently included in the archival gift, will have the opportunity to do so within this period, following required PFA processes. The requests will be pooled by FAF and given in two groups to PFA for the return process.  FAF must receive all return requests no later than February 20, 2009. PFA encourages film and videomakers to allow their tapes to remain in the FAF donation in order to complete and enhance the historical value of the collection. Full details are available at http://filmarts.org