Reclaiming (and Digitizing) America’s Cinematic Patrimony

On Oct. 21, 2010, during the second annual meeting of the Russian-American Working Group on Library Cooperation, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington was presented with digitally preserved copies of 10 American silent movies—considered lost for decades— from the Russian Federation, represented by Vladimir I. Kozhin, Head, Management and Administration of the President of the Russian Federation. A brief description of each of these films can be found in the following Library of Congress press release.

Due to neglect and deterioration over time, America has lost more than half of the films produced before 1950. In addition, more than 80 percent of movies from the silent era (1893-1930) do not exist in the U.S. In the past 20 years, the Library of Congress and others have made great efforts to locate and repatriate missing U.S.-produced movies from foreign archives.

As part of its partnership with the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library, the Library of Congress received a gift of 10 movies that constitute the first installment of an ongoing series of “lost” films produced by U.S. movie studios that will be digitally preserved by Gosfilmofond, the Russian state film archive, and presented, via the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library, to the Library of Congress. Preliminary research conducted by the staff of the Library’s Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation indicates that up to 200 movies produced by U.S. movie studios of the silent and sound eras may survive only in the Gosfilmofond archive. Digital copies of these films will eventually be sent to the Library of Congress.

Erik Zitser, PhD