American Film Institute / Photo Credit: AFI
WHAT IS THE AMERICAN FILM
INSTITUTE? (In the Entertainment industry.)
What is the American Film Institute?
The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American film
organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion
picture arts in the United States. The institute is composed of leaders from
the film, entertainment, business, and academic communities. AFI is supported
by private funding and public membership fees.
From the American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is America's promise to
preserve the heritage of the motion picture, to honor the artists and their
work and to educate the next generation of storytellers. As a nonprofit
educational arts organization, AFI provides leadership in film and television
and is dedicated to initiatives that engage the past, the present and the
future of the moving image arts.
The American Film Institute began as a presidential
mandate to establish film as essential to American identity, to elevate the
nation's greatest art form to its deserving place in history. AFI grew from the
seeds planted in the White House Rose Garden by President Lyndon B. Johnson in
1965 to a fully rounded Institute that has defined American film for more than
half a century — with the mission to preserve the heritage of the motion
picture, to honor the artists and their work and to educate the next generation
of storytellers.
AFI began in 1967, with Gregory Peck named first
chair of the Board of Trustees and George Stevens, Jr., its director and CEO,
and a board that featured film luminaries and masters including Francis Ford
Coppola, Sidney Poitier, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and Jack Valenti. Today, the
Board continues to be comprised of such artists and icons as Halle Berry, James
L. Brooks, Kathleen Kennedy, Eva Longoria, Shonda Rhimes, Steven Spielberg and
Ed Zwick.
Until the creation of AFI — well before the days of
IMDb — there was no complete and comprehensive index of motion pictures. AFI
began, in 1968, recording the first 100 years of American film with the AFI
Catalog of Feature Films— the first-ever scholarly listing of films, with
vetted information about the existence, availability and sources of films
already produced, spanning the entirety of the art form since 1893.
The AFI Catalog marked the beginning of the
Institute's efforts to preserve the heritage of American film. Sparking the
movement for film preservation in the U.S., AFI began its first restoration in
1973, with director Frank Capra's 1937 classic LOST HORIZON. Today, the Library
of Congress houses the AFI Collection of more than 27,500 essential and rare
titles gathered by the Institute throughout the past five decades.
The Institute rose to meet the demands of the
changing climate and to spread the knowledge of American film to the nation. In
1969, AFI established the AFI Conservatory, a graduate-level program to train
narrative filmmakers. The hands-on, learning-by-doing program to this day
offers training to future storytellers from a dedicated faculty from the film
and television communities, all currently working in the industry, and
including masters of the art form.
In response to an increased need for diversity in the
filmmaking community, AFI founded the AFI Directing Workshop for Women — one of
the very first programs of its kind anywhere in the world — in 1974. It is a
free, hands-on training program committed to increasing the number of women
working professionally in the moving image arts.
The highest honor for a career in American film, the
AFI Life Achievement Award began in 1973 as a celebration of an individual who
has greatly contributed to the enrichment of the art form, and therefore to
American culture. Following inaugural honoree John Ford, annual recipients of
this highest honor for a career in film have included Orson Welles, Alfred
Hitchcock, John Huston, Billy Wilder, Sidney Poitier, Elizabeth Taylor, Steven
Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Morgan Freeman, Shirley MacLaine and John Williams.
In 1987, AFI held the first AFI Los Angeles
International Film Festival in Hollywood — now AFI FEST presented by Audi — to
further celebrate the accomplishments of artists devoted to the ever-changing
form. The festival remains part of AFI's bicoastal exhibition efforts, with AFI
FEST bringing films new and classic, global and domestic, to audiences in the
heart of Hollywood.
Across the country, AFI has established a preeminent
film presence, with the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center — originally
located at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, before
moving to Silver Spring, MD — offering year-round retrospective and
cutting-edge, curated programming. In DC, AFI established its first documentary
film festival in 1999, now known as AFI DOCS. Each year, the festival
celebrates the highest standards in documentary filmmaking, convening U.S.
policymakers with filmmakers from all over the world in the heart of our
nation's capital and at the AFI Silver.
AFI, in 1998, unveiled a national celebration of the
cinema centennial in AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies, a definitive selection of the
greatest 100 films of all time, taking into account each movie's historical
significance, cultural impact and contributions to the evolution of film
technique. Following an updated 10th Anniversary of the list in 2007, the
Institute then created AFI's 10 Top 10, raising a necessary spotlight on
overlooked or undervalued genres ranging from Fantasy to Gangster, Courtroom
Drama to Epic.
In 2000, AFI hosted the first AFI AWARDS, the only
national honor for the entertainment community's creative ensembles both in
front of and behind the camera, acknowledging the collaborative nature of
movies and television. The celebration launched as an almanac aimed at honoring
excellence in the moving image during the 21st century and to be referenced
time and again by scholars as well as the general public.
In the new millennium, AFI partnered with the White
House Student Film Festival, inviting K-12 students to screen their films in
the East Room of the White House. The world-renowned AFI Conservatory continues
to train storytellers who work at award-winning levels. In 2015, the
Conservatory made history with its thesis films, which swept the entire
narrative category of the Student Academy Awards. Altogether, AFI alumni have
won 30 Academy Awards® and received 149 nominations.
AFI membership is open to the public and relies on
the generous financial support from people like you to provide funding for AFI
programs and initiatives.
Sources, References & Credits: Google, Wikipedia, Wikihow, WikiBooks,
Pinterest, IMDB, Linked In, Indie Wire, Film Making Stuff, Hiive, Film Daily, New
York Film Academy, The Balance, Careers Hub, The Numbers, Film Maker, TV Guide
Magazine, Blurb, Media Match, Quora, Creative Skill Set, Chron, Investopedia,
Variety, No Film School, WGA, BBC, Daily Variety, The Film Agency, Best Sample
Resume, How Stuff Works, Studio Binder, Career Trend, Producer's Code of
Credits, Truity, Production Hub, Producers Guild of America, Film Connection, Variety,
Wolf Crow, Get In Media, Production Beast, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros, UCAS, Frankenbite,
Realty 101, Careers Hub, Screen Play Scripts, Elements of Cinema, Script
Doctor, ASCAP, Film Independent, Any Possibility, CTLsites, NYFA, Future Learn,
VOM Productions, Mad Studios, DP School, DGA, IATSE, ASC, MPAA, HFPA, MPSE,
CDG, AFI,
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American Film Institute / Photo Credit: AFI
