It may seem that films are now more accessible than ever because of the establishment of streaming services, yet many films have already been lost and are not available in any form in anywhere. They are not just some films in the silent era but could also be some of those produced in the 1980s and 1990s. And the reason is not just that the film materials are lost but also issues on the copyrights.
Recently, an organisation in the US named Missing Movies was set out, it aims to ‘empower filmmakers, distributors, archivists, and others to locate lost materials, clear rights, and advocate for policies and laws to make the full range of our cinema history available to all’. The initiative began after directors Nancy Savoca and Richard Guay discovered that their 1993 film, Household Saints could not screen in ‘NY Indie Guy: Ira Deutchman and the Rise of Independent Film’ at Columbia University because no one actually knows who owns the rights. With the help of their lawyer and the original distributor of the film, the film could be made available again. They recognised the importance of taking care of these non-mainstream creations and there is something they could do to preserve some parts of the film history.
Website of ‘Missing Movies’: https://missingmovies.org
Further readings:
Noah Gittell, ‘“We can’t afford to lose them”: the fight to bring missing movies back’, The Guardian, 7 March 2022.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/mar/07/missing-movies-streaming-initiative
Samantha Bergeson, ‘Missing Movies Is Determined to Democratize Independent Film Preservation’, IndieWire, 4 February 2022.
https://www.indiewire.com/2022/02/missing-movies-democracy-independent-film-preservation-1234696488/
Still: Household Saints
