The Carpenter Center is the home of the Harvard Film Archive
HFA was founded in 1979 by Robert Gardner and his colleagues in Harvard’s Department of Visual and Environmental. It first opened on March 16, 1979 with a screening of the silent film Lady Windermere’s Fan by Ernst Lubitsch.
The Harvard Film Archive (HFA) is a film archive devoted to cinema located in Cambridge, Massachusettes. With a collection of over 9000 films and related documents, and regularly screens films in its 210 seat theater. It also has a film conservation center near Central Square, Cambridge.
The archive’s first curator was Vlada K. Petric, who expanded the collection and established the year-round regular screenings. He retired in 1995 and in 1999 Bruce Jenkins assumed the post. In January 2005, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean William C. Kirby announced that the archive would be absorbed by the Harvard College Library and managed by the Library of Fine Arts. This caused some concern within the Harvard community about the future of the archive and its programming. Jenkins resigned soon after the announcement.
In September 2006 film scholar Haden Guest became the new director of the archive. He has calmed fears that the archives’ absorption in the Library would affect its public film screenings.
It is part of the archive’s mission to screen films, however, since film is perishable, regular showings take their toll on the film stock itself. Therefore, conserving and preserving the collection’s prints has also become an important focus.
At STiL Casing Solution, we are honored to count HFA as one of our loyal customers. Thank you for the confidence you place in our products and letting us participate in preserving your collection!