For the Love of Film (Noir)

This time last year, Film Studies For Free was thrilled to support the For the Love of Film Preservation fund-raising blogathon organised by peerless, online, film critics Farran Smith Nehme (Self-Styled Siren) and Marilyn Ferdinand (of Ferdy on Film).

The grand total of money raised for film preservation last year was more than $30,000 in contributions and matching funds; those funds saved films through the National Film Preservation Foundation.

This year, the chosen theme for the blogathon is Film Noir, so you can expect many fine entries on that topic to be appearing all over the film internets in the immediate aftermath of Valentine's Day.

Donations will go to the Film Noir Foundation, which works to preserve and restore movies in this mode from many eras and from many countries. The film to be restored this year is a fine and important noir called The Sound of Fury (aka Try and Get Me) directed by Cy Endfield, possibly more well-known (if not better remembered) for Zulu (1964).

As Marilyn Ferdinand writes:

A nitrate print of [Endfield's] film will be restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, using a reference print from Martin Scorsese’s personal collection to guide them and fill in any blanks. Paramount Pictures has agreed to help fund the restoration, but FNF is going to have to come up with significant funds to get the job done. That’s where we come in.

Do check out the wonderful promotional trailer for the event created by Greg Ferrara of Cinemastyles, who also made the e-poster above. The blogathon Facebook page is here. Also, please make sure to visit the all-important donation link.

And do watch out for a further, snazzy entry on film noir by FSFF, in upcoming weeks, as its own original contribution to the whole shebang...