The National Center for Film and Video Preservation at the American Film Institute announced that a collection of over 1600 American films, many of them believed to have perished forever, have come home to the United States from Australia. In an extraordinary gesture of goodwill, The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) has returned these films as a donation to The American Film Institute. The repatriation of this "lost" American heritage is the result of a collaborative effort between AFI and other American archives.

The Australians recognised that the enormous responsibility of preserving their own national production meant they could not give sufficient priority to non-Australian holdings. Last October, they made the difficult decision to repatriate all foreign nitrate films in their possession. According to Ann Baylis, NFSA Acting Deputy Director, "We are sorry to part with these films, but we would not have been able to preserve them for at least 20 years. By that time they could have decomposed. This was the only responsible course for us to take. We believe very strongly in working together within the international archiving community."

AFI National Center Archivist Susan Dalton says, "The American Film Institute is delighted to accept this gift on behalf of the American people. We extend our thanks to Australia's National Film and Sound Archive for acknowledging the universal urgency of film preservation efforts, and for demonstrating such great respect towards the international film heritage." The NFSA has also generously returned films to Canada, France, and Great Britain, with more countries yet to come.

The National Center and the NFSA have worked for over ten months to coordinate this project with US archives including George Eastman House, The Human Studies Film Archives, the Library of Congress, The Museum of Modern Art, The National Archives, and the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Together, these archives have borne the shipping costs from Australia and will also share the responsibility of preserving the films. All are indebted to the Library of Congress for making its nitrate vaults at Suitland, Maryland, available as a processing center for this huge collection. UCLA Film and Television Archive Curator Eddie Richmond says, "No one archive working alone could have possibly undertaken this repatriation and, only by working together, can the American archives hope to save this invaluable legacy."

Dalton describes the 1600 films as ranging from pre-1900 through the 1950s and including all types and genres of film. Many are apparently the only existing copies. Among the earliest "lost" films are An Indian Sunbeam (1912), with Broncho Billy Anderson, the world's first cowboy film star; Among the Mourners, a 1914 Keystone comedy starring Charley Chase; and Bringin' Home the Bacon (1924), one of the earliest features starring Jean Arthur. Many of the original titles are not yet identified. Dalton says, "When we begin to examine the films, we will undoubtedly discover a wealth of treasures."

Unexpected discoveries in the Australian collection are Once Every Ten Minutes and Peculiar Patients' Pranks (both 1915), apparently the world's only copies of these early works of master comedian Harold Lloyd. Lloyd's granddaughter, AFI Trustee Suzanne Lloyd Hayes says, "To regain some of my grandfather's work after nearly eighty years is miraculous. All Americans who love film will benefit from this gift."

A recent report from the Library of Congress, which includes repatriation efforts among its recommendations, emphasises the timeliness of the Australian project. Unfortunately, time is one thing these films do not have. Over 98% of them are on unstable nitrate stock and most are "orphan films" no longer in copyright, or produced by independent companies which have since disappeared. The preservation of this recovered American heritage will be an urgent and challenging enterprise.

The American Film Institute is a national trust to preserving the heritage of film and television; to identifying, developing and training creative individuals; and to preserving the moving image as an art form.