The Missing Movies board of directors has announced that the organization has received IRS tax exemption status. According to the group, that designation means that it can now apply for grants and accept tax-deductible donations directly.
The board said donations will help it expand efforts to alert film fans about the tens of thousands of motion pictures that are currently unavailable to the average viewer; create tools to enable filmmakers to retrace and regain the rights and film elements to their own movies that are missing; and provide advice to new filmmakers on how to include contract language and craft budgets that will ensure that their work is preserved and accessible.
Movie audiences today are being led to believe that streaming has made the entire history of cinema available for a simple subscription fee — or at least a couple of dozen subscription fees. This is not true. There is an immediate and critical need to address this issue. The truth is that movies are simply not as available today as they were during the heyday of VHS when some brick-and-mortar video stores carried tens of thousands of titles. Now, with a few giant companies controlling the most popular streaming services and trying to outdo one another with original content, many older movies are being left behind.
Thousands of movies are either completely lost or are deemed too small to warrant the expense of restoring them, and thus are completely unavailable. This is especially true of work created by women and people of color. As a result, we end up with a skewed history of filmmaking and crucial gaps in our cultural knowledge and legacy.
Filmmakers Mary Harron, Shola Lynch, Nancy Savoca, Ira Deutchman and Richard Guay and entertainment lawyer Susan Bodine; and archivist/distributors Dennis Doros and Amy Heller joined forces to create Missing Movies.
According to Heller, “Among the Missing Movies are independent productions representing a diverse cross section of American society, including films by and about women, African Americans, and members of the LGBTQ community. The loss of these films impoverishes cinema culture and distorts our history. By working to educate the industry and the public about this issue we hope to find practical and timely solutions.”
Click here to make a tax-deductible donation https://missingmovies.org/donate/?mc_cid=d6763d94b7&mc_eid=ac89f232ea