NYWIFT @ the 54th NYFF: New Challenges in Film Preservation

NYWIFT co-presents with the 54th New York Film Festival the panel New Challenges in Film Preservation. The Women’s Film Preservation Fund (WFPF) of New York Women in Film & Television has helped to restore and preserve over 100 films in which women have had a key creative role. Among these is Harlan County, USA, being shown at the NYFF in the Revivals section. The result of this preservation project was a new 16mm print, which has been used for exhibition.

But what now? There are almost no 16mm exhibition venues available today. However we know that film is the most stable of all available moving image media. How does this effect the preservationist. Should 16mm prints continue to be made?

NYWIFT Women’s Film Preservation Fund Committee will present a discussion on this and other new challenges in film preservation. Featured speakers include preservation experts Balazs Nyari (Cineric), Katie Trainor (Film Collections Manager, MoMA), Susan Lazarus(Producer/Post Production Supervisor, Paterson, WFPF) and Ann Deborah Levy(Filmmaker/Co-Chair, WFPF). Moderated by Marian Masone (Film Festival Programmer/Media Strategist).

Susan Lazarus is a producer and post-production supervisor, whose credits range from Mississippi Masala, Bob Roberts, The Boxer and Naqoyqatsi, to Inside Man, Foxcatcher, Desert Cathedral, (premiered September 27th on streaming media), and the Jim Jarmusch films Only Lovers Left Alive and Paterson(U.S. premiere at the 2016 New York Film Festival). Documentaries include HBO’s The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, Phyllis and Harold, Andre Gregory: Before and After Dinner, and Apache 8. Her next film is Sophie and the Rising Sun (Dir: Maggie Greenwald, to be released in 2017). Lazarus served on the NYWIFT Board of Directors as Vice-President in charge of Programming. As a former chairwoman of The Women’s Film Preservation Fund, Susan instigated and executed the preservation of Harlan County USA.

Ann Deborah Levy, Co-Chair of the Women’s film Preservation Fund is an experimental filmmaker. Her visually arresting, award-winning films and videos have screened in the USA at Denver International Film, Athens Film Festival, Oxford Film Festival and at experimental film festivals Moviate, Transient Visions Festival of the Moving Image, and Another Experiment by Women Film Festival. Festival screenings abroad include Female Eye Film Festival, Toronto; Lucca Film Festival; Bideodromo Experimental Film Festival, Bilbao; Moving Experimental Festival, Kyoto; and the Cuba Video Art Festival. Her films have also been seen in the alternative film venues UnionDocs, Brooklyn, New York; Anthology Film Archives, New York City; and Moving Image Art, Pasadena, California among others. Her work has been programmed by Tomorari Nishikawa, Joel Schlemowitz, Lorenzo Gattorna, Lili White, and Allana Simone. She comes to filmmaking by way of painting and photography and has been a recipient of both Yaddo and MacDowell fellowships.

John Rizzo, President of Metropolis Post, caught the Film Bug back in grammar school when a fellow classmate brought in his 8mm projector with a load of Castle home movie film prints which were all silent digest versions of the universal horror classics. This good friend introduced me to his dad who was a collector of 16mm prints which got me totally hooked on the hobby, which led me into the motion picture film lab and now digital business. Preservation and Restoration Projects include Orson Welles’ Othello, Fritz Lang’s Ministry of Fear, Eraserhead by David Lynch. Clients include Criterion, MoMA, and Milestone Films as well as a new filmmakers seeking high quality film and digital finishing.

Katie Trainor is currently the Film Collections Manager at The Museum of Modern Art. She is a graduate of the L. Jefrrey Selznick School of Film Preservation at the George Eastman Museum. Previously she worked at The Harvard Film Archive and also as Director of Operations at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville NY. Trainor served as General Manager of the IFC Center and has also maintained her trade as a motion picture projectionist at the Sundance Film Festival since 2001 among other festivals. She is a Co-Founder of The Center For Home Movies and Home Movie Day and is an active member of the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA).

Marian Masone is a film festival programmer and media strategist, currently working as a film curator for the world-renowned art fair Art Basel and as a producing consultant for Jump Cut Creative. For over 25 years at the Film Society of Lincoln Center she programmed new and retrospective series and monthly programs, organized education initiatives, established programs for emerging filmmakers and served on the selection committees for the New York Film Festival and, with the Museum of Modern Art, New Directors/New Films. Ms. Masone is on the film panel of the Princess Grace Foundation, which awards scholarships and fellowships to emerging artists, and she is a member of New York Women in Film and Television. She has been a panelist and juror for numerous national and international organizations and festivals, and has lectured at Parsons School of Design, Pratt Institute, Cinéfondation Residence in Paris, and the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid. She has an M.A. in cinema studies from NYU, writes on film and media for various publications and is on the selection committee of The NYWIFT Women’s Film Preservation Fund.

FREE! No RSVP Necessary.

For more information, visit NYFF Live: New Challenges in Film Preservation

This program will be ASL interpreted.