Courtesy of BAM
MoMA, along with The Warhol and a Technicolor company, are digitizing around 500 Andy Warhol films, many of which have not been seen before. The project was announced today, and MoMA notes that the films are from between 1963 and 1972, but were taken out of circulation more than 40 years ago. 1963 is the year that Warhol got his first motion picture camera (a 16mm Bolex), so this will include his first films, as well as screen tests from The Factory. From their press release:
"Nearly 1,000 rolls of original 16mm film will be digitally scanned, frame by frame, and converted into high resolution images. The scanning, which will begin in August 2014, will take several years to complete as the process is delicate. However, once completely digitized, the entire collection of Warhol films will be available for public screening.
The films themselves have been housed, conserved, and in some cases exhibited at MoMA since the early 1990s as part of the museum's collection of some 22,000 films, and are among the most requested works in MoMA's Circulating Film Library."
Rajendra Roy, MoMA's Chief Curator of Film, said, "The results will allow us to maintain our custodial responsibility for the long term analog preservation of Andy Warhol’s films, and will help provide broader access to them for research and theatrical exhibition."
As for this year, 15 of the never publicly seen films will screen at BAM's Next Wave Festival in November.
