National Center for Jewish Film
The National Center for Jewish Film is a non-profit motion picture archive, distributor, and resource center.
Founded in 1976 by Miriam Saul Krant, the National Center for Jewish Film (NCJF or the Center) became an independent
Collections
The NCJF archive exclusively owns an estimated 10,000 cans of film (35 mm, 16 mm, 8 mm, super 8) and thousands of master videotapes. This collection of feature films, documentaries, fiction and non-fiction short films, newsreels, home movies, and institutional films includes material dating from 1903 to the present. These films address a wide range of topics, including: the Jewish immigrant experience in America,
The Center’s collection includes ethnographic studies of past and present Jewish communities in China, Mexico, Morocco, Australia, Tunisia, Russia, Argentina, Bosnia, India, Romania, Greece, and Egypt, travelogues depicting Jewish life in Poland before World War II, U.S. government World War II newsreels, studies in Israeli history, Holocaust films exploring little-known sites of genocide like
Film preservation
NCJF's first priority is the
The Center's other archival and preservations projects include features and documentaries from around the globe; early American silent film comedies and features; rare early Russian films; pre–World War II home movies of
NCJF was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Film Preservation Foundation to participate (with nine other institutions) in the millennium film preservation program, "Treasures of American Film Archives." NCJF is a founding member of the Association of Moving Image and a member of the International Film Archives Association and The Council of Archives and Research Libraries in Jewish Studies.
Other activities
NCJF’s other activities include film distribution, producing public programs, and providing programming, consultation, and research assistance to approximately 2000 individuals and institutions a year.
The Center’s rare film materials are made available to scholars, curators, journalists, teachers, authors, artists, filmmakers, and the general public, and have been exhibited and screened worldwide. They have been used as the basis for numerous books and articles, and have been included in many museum exhibitions and film productions, including The Winds of War, Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust, Chasing Shadows, The Last Days, The Struma, Hollywoodism, and scores of independent documentaries.
NCJF distributes 350 films, including the productions of over 100 contemporary independent filmmakers. The Center produces and sells videocassettes and DVDs of its titles for both home and educational use and licenses its films for television broadcasts; recently stations include Turner Movie Classics, Jewish Broadcast Network, Shalom TV, ARTE [France/Germany], SBS [Australia], NOGA [Israel], and Four Films [UK].
NCJF began organizing its own film festival -- JEWISHFILM—in 1998 at the Edie and Lew Wasserman Cinematheque at Brandeis University.
References
- ^ "The National Center for Jewish Film". JConnect. Retrieved 2022-12-31.
- ^ Archives, L. A. Times (2006-04-19). "Miriam Saul Krant, 78; Co-founder of National Center for Jewish Film". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2022-12-31.