Keep Film on Film

We need your help to keep 35mm film at the forefront of the cinema experience.

There are fewer and fewer opportunities for people to experience classic films as they were first seen by audiences, with the unique qualities of watching a film print projected. As film prints become damaged and are retired, many titles can now only be seen on digital formats.

Since 2018, we have been working on a five-year project at the BFI National Archive to create new 35mm prints of 100 carefully curated films, to ensure audiences can enjoy the cinematic experience of these films in the way their filmmakers intended.

With titles including Metropolis, 8½, Orlando, and Malcolm X, these 35mm prints span nine decades of film and 25 countries, and are classics of British and international cinema. 

All these new film prints will be handled by expert projectionists and stored in climate-controlled vaults at the BFI National Archive. This will ensure that these prints will survive for generations, so that audiences of today and tomorrow will be able to experience the magic of projected 35mm film in all its depth and beauty on the big screen.

But we can only complete this important project with the support of film lovers like you.

Film is an incredibly fragile, organic and imperfect material, and creating each new 35mm print is a highly complex, specialised and expensive process.

As the art form of projecting films in their original format is becoming increasingly endangered, we need to act now to ensure that our cinema histories are not lost, and make sure that audiences now and in the future have the opportunity to enjoy the magic that only projecting real film on the big screen can bring.

Will you make a donation today and help us to keep film on film?

How could you help?

£100 could help us recreate 900 frames of a 35mm masterpiece such as Breathless

£250 could help us re-can and relabel a film print such as The Shining to ensure safe and secure storage

£500 could help to provide sub-zero storage in the BFI’s master film store for a classic film such as Citizen Kane

£2,000 could help us recreate 1,000 feet of 35mm film for a classic title such as Dr. Strangelove

£5,000 could help us recreate 2,500 feet of a new film reel for an integral title such as Metropolis

To make your donation, please complete the form below, email philanthropy@bfi.org.uk or call us on 020 7815 1402.

Please donate to Keep Film on Film today and help us safeguard the future of 35mm film.

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