On March 9, 2019, the HFPA hosted a summit to spotlight the crisis threatening the world’s film heritage. Luminaries in the film preservation field discussed the decay endangering films worldwide and the need to restore, archive and protect them before it’s too late. The Library of Congress has calculated that 75% of all silent film ever made have succumbed to decay and are forever lost. Martin Scorsese who founded the Film Foundation estimates that a full 90% of all American films made before 1929 are now gone. And film degradation threatens all films, including recent productions. With this in mind, the HFPA asked leading experts in the field to enlighten film fans about the scope of the crisis threatening a vital part of the world’s cultural heritage. Joining us at the historic and majestic Theater at Ace (previously the United Artists movie palace on Broadway in Los Angeles) were seven-time Golden Globe winner Jane Fonda, Globe-winning director Alexander Payne, UCLA Film and Television archive director Jan-Christopher Horak, Sony’s foremost  restoration expert Grover Crisp and Sandra Schulberg, founder and director of independent film restoration association Indie Collect, who also moderated the panel. Our featured guest was Thierry Frémaux, director of the Cannes Film Festival as well as the Lyon Film Festival, one of the world’s premiere shows cases for classic and restored films. You won’t want to miss his riveting presentation of Lumière Brothers shorts: far from being simple novelties, the films which are cinema’s birth certificate also contain the beginnings of what would grow to become one of our world’s preeminent art forms.