To Save and Project: The MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation Returns

With To Save and Project: The 22nd MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation, more than 75 recently preserved filmic projects will return to the silver screen—some making their world and North American premieres, others appearing for the first time in the U.S. since their original theatrical release. This year’s curation, which includes features and shorts, represents 23 countries and covers more than a century of cinematic history. From the New York premiere of MoMA’s new restoration of Russ Meyer’s Vixen! (1968) to Niki de Saint Phalle’s feature-length Daddy (1973), which she wrote and co-directed, the lineup is an ode to the depth of motion-picture exploration and a demonstration of the power of preservation.

“Eclectic by design, ‘To Save and Project’ celebrates the preservation work of Hollywood studios and international archives. But no less vital to our cinema heritage are the amateur films, home movies, and vernacular material that can be found in more specialized realms, whether footage from the Vatican of Pope Leo XIII in 1896 or a Kentucky newsreel from the Appalachian Workshop,” Joshua Siegel, Curator, Department of Film at MoMA, tells Surface. Siegel organized this year’s edition of the film preservation festival.

Regarding this year’s programming, the curator adds, “My strategy, such as it is, is to lure audiences to MoMA with the films they already know and love (yet in original theatrical versions that may nonetheless be new to them, such as G.W. Pabst’s gorgeously reconstructed The Joyless Street) and earn their trust so that they might be willing to take a chance on something unseen and revelatory.”

Siegel and the curatorial team wed cutting-edge digital technology with what he refers to as old-fashioned sleuthing. “We keep up on the latest in preservation technologies—one can trace this across the festival’s 22-year history—yet remain ardent champions of independent and iconoclastic work, such as this year’s Warhol footage and Michael Almereyda’s Nadja, that has lost none of its feverish or fragmented allure.” The ‘60s Warhol films Siegel notes are, in fact, previously unseen. They mark one highlight in a diverse slate running now through February 2.