Leonardo DiCaprio with HFPA President Dr. Aida Takla-O'Reilly

“Movies touch our hearts and awaken our vision, and change the way we see things. They take us to other places, they open doors and minds. Movies are the memories of our life time, we need to keep them alive.”

—Martin Scorsese

With a donation of $350,000 to the Film Foundation, which was accepted at the HFPA’s Installation and Grants lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel by Leonardo DiCaprio,  the Association continues its mission to help restore some of the greatest cinema classics of our time. When you consider that half the American films made before 1950 and 90% of films made before 1929 have been lost forever, film preservation has never had a more urgent need. The Film Foundation, which director Martin Scorsese founded in 1990, has been at the forefront of film preservation. The nonprofit organization provides substantial annual support for restoration and preservation at the nation’s leading film archives. Instrumental in raising awareness of the urgent need to preserve films it has helped, with generous donors such as the Hollywood Foreign Press, to save more than 545 films. This “hands-on” preservation ensures that these great films which are not only works of art but historical records and essential representations of our culture will survive for future generations. Since first contributing to The Film Foundation fifteen years ago, the Hollywood Foreign Press has become a major supporter, donating more than 3 million dollars  which have  contributed to the preservation of more than 75 motion pictures by such noted directors as Stanley Kubrick, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Jean Renoir and John Cassavetes. “It means a great deal to us,” says Jennifer Ahn, the Managing Director of The Film Foundation. “The HFPA is so instrumental in preservation of film history. They put an enormous amount of effort and funds to this mission and it is a huge part of what The Film Foundation does. We highly value and praise the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for this invaluable public service”. Donations from the HFPA in 2004 helped restore one of 1939’s Best Picture nominees, Lewis Milestone’s “Of Mice and Men”, as well as Jean Renoir’s 1951 classic, “The River.”  HFPA grants also contributed to the restoration of Orson Welles brooding 1948 version of “Macbeth”, the 1948 classic The Red Shoes,  Nicholas Ray’s “Born to be Bad” from 1950, Otto Preminger’s 1955 searing indictment of drug addiction in his 1955 film, “The Man with the Golden Arm,” Melvin van Peebles controversial blaxploitation 70’s film ,”Sweet Sweetback’s Baad Asssss Song,” and Robert Altman’s Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean.