DER is excited to announce that we are recipients of a 2023 preservation grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation. Through this grant, we will restore John Marshall’s culturally and historically significant films Bitter Melons (1971) and N/um Tchai: A Ceremonial Dance of the !Kung Bushmen (1969). Since their respective releases, these films have been widely used in the classroom and are now part of the canon of ethnographic filmmaking.
For more information on the NFPF’s preservation grants, read the official announcement on the their website, and view the complete list of this year’s grant winners. We thank the NFPF for making this work possible.
We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Human Studies Film Archive at the Smithsonian Institution, a part of the National Anthropological Archives, for their partnership in this film preservation effort, and for their stewardship of John Marshall’s films, in addition to works by many other filmmakers represented in the DER catalogue.
This restoration project will bring these classic titles into contemporary standards of resolution and image quality. To keep these films available in the highest quality for future use requires considerable time and effort, as well as access to expertise in archiving and preservation. The work performed under this grant will ensure these influential ethnographic films can be enjoyed by audiences well into the 21st century.
To help fund future restoration projects like this one, you can kindly donate to DER.
