Harvard Film Archive

The Harvard Film Archive is a film archive and cinema located in the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dedicated to the collection, preservation and exhibition of film, the HFA houses a collection of over 25,000 films in addition to videos, photos, posters and other film ephemera from around the world and from almost every period in film history. The HFA cinematheque screens films weekly in its 188-seat theater. It also maintains a film conservation center near Central Square, Cambridge.HistoryThe archive was founded in 1979 by Robert Gardner and his colleagues in Harvard's Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, with grants from the Henry Luce Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. It opened on March 16, 1979 with a screening of Ernst Lubitsch’s silent film, Lady Windermere's Fan.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.