Film is Fragile

By Ron Merk

 

I was recently sent a link to this amazing video made by Mill+ and the British Film Institute. No words, no narration, just images. Images we all know and love. But what happens to these images and the films from which they are taken if the film material on which they are recorded are not protected and preserved for future generations. The video says it all. Or as they would say in Latin: Res ipse loquitur.*

Watch the video. Imagine if we lost all these films how much poorer the world would be. https://vimeo.com/142672113

It’s not other people’s history, it’s ours … yours and mine. Film is fragile, like any medium on which we record our lives, our history and our hopes. Time is running out for tens of millions of feet of film all over the world. And when it’s gone, there will be no way to get it back. We will, in fact, lose part of ourselves.

Watch the video, and get involved in help saving films, from your own home movies to all the films sitting in vaults at archives here in the U.S. and around the globe. Get in touch with any film archive and offer your help, and your financial support.

If you are interested in saving your own history, I’d like to point out that a foundation of which I was co-founder is working on an amazing project focused on preserving our personal film history – home movies. If you would like to help with the project with financial support, or tell us about YOUR home movies, please contact me. The website for The Metro Theatre Center Foundation is: www.MetroCenterFoundation.org

You can read more about what we do, and make a donation to support this important work. You can save a film today.

*Translation: The thing speaks for itself.