Film Preservation

Despite their historical and cultural value, the historical record of independent films is extremely vulnerable to loss or damage…through neglect and deteriorating prints as well as companies and labs going out of business or changing ownership. As a result, original elements and quality prints of many seminal independent films - some made as recently as the past decade - can be difficult or impossible to locate. For many, even video copies no longer exist.

For that reason, Sundance Institute and the UCLA Film & Television Archive joined forces in 1997 to establish the Sundance Institute Collection at UCLA, a groundbreaking archive that exists to protect, preserve, and restore independent work.

Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs

Comprised of features, documentaries, and shorts and made possible through donated prints and videos from distributors as well as hundreds of individual filmmakers, the Collection's holdings have grown to include almost 1,000 films, representing work from the Sundance Film Festival as well as projects developed through various Sundance Institute programs, including sex, lies and videotape, Reservoir Dogs, The Living End, Smoke Signals, Amores Perros, Harlan County USA, Love & Basketball, Welcome to the Dollhouse, and many other works for which quality prints might otherwise not exist.

As the only independent film archive of its kind, the Collection also provides a central resource for research through an extensive video library housed at the Archive Research and Study Center in UCLA's Powell Library.

How You Can Help

We would love your help in expanding the Collection. If your work has passed through the Sundance Film Festival or any of our artist development programs, the Collection can help ensure that it is properly archived. Click here to get started preserving your film!

Jennifer Baichwal's Manufactured Landscapes

Our company donors include Artisan Entertainment, Gramercy Pictures, Lionsgate, Miramax Films, New Line Cinema, October Films, OTM, Sony Pictures Classics, Strand Releasing, Trimark Pictures, and Zeitgeist Films.