Mobile Navigation
Tillie’s Punctured Romance (1914), Fireworks (1947), Shadows (1957/9), The Exiles (1961), The Connection (1961), Wanda (1970), Crossroads (1976), Diary of an African Nun (1977), Killer of Sheep (1977), Matewan (1987), Hoop Dreams (1994). Even this partial list of UCLA restoration projects overseen by preservationist, filmmaker and author Ross Lipman points to the incalculable contribution he’s made to film culture over his 30-year career. After starting out at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, Lipman worked at the UCLA Film & Television Archive for 17 years, much of that time under the mentorship of the Archive’s legendary Preservation Department founder Robert Gitt, before starting his own company, Corpus Fluxus, in 2015. His work bringing overlooked or forgotten films back to the screen has helped expand the film canon to include filmmakers such as Charles Burnett, Barbara Loden and Billy Woodberry while ensuring the masterworks of Kenneth Anger, John Cassavetes, Bruce Conner, Shirley Clarke, John Sayles and Wayne Wang remain available for future generations.
Along the way, he experienced firsthand the radical transformation of the field by digital tools and workflows. In parallel to his restoration work, he’s a practicing filmmaker, often developing new documentary works that shed additional light on the films he’s worked on. In his new collection of essays, The Archival Impermanence Project: Film Restoration Poetics, Case Studies and Histories, Lipman makes accessible to professionals and cinephiles alike what he’s learned, how the changes in the industry have shaped his understanding of movies as an art form, and what it means to preserve a work of art in a world where change is the only constant. The Archive is thrilled to welcome Lipman to the Billy Wilder Theater for a weekend of screenings and conversations about the past, present and future of film restoration.
Each screening in this series will be preceded by a book signing with Ross Lipman beginning at 6:30 p.m.
Series programmed by Senior Public Programmer Paul Malcolm and Ross Lipman. Notes written by Paul Malcolm, except where noted.
