FAYETTEVILLE -- The Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival has provided documentary filmmakers a way to showcase their work since the earliest years of the event, first held in 1992.
"In those days, there were a lot of things that screened that probably never did gain distribution," said Courtney Pledger, executive director of the Hot Springs Documentary Film Institute, the nonprofit organization that puts together the event.
Now, older films screened at the festival -- along with photographs, posters and insider home movies chronicling the event's history -- will be stored at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Pledger said the festival donated materials to UA to better preserve items and "also to dig into what might be some real treasures in there."
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Margaret Lazarus praised the move.
"The Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival consistently did a brilliant job in curating and exhibiting documentary film way before it was such a popular thing to do. It is wonderful to hear that their archives are being preserved and cataloged by the University of Arkansas," wrote Lazarus in an email to the Democrat-Gazette.
However, making the materials publicly accessible may not happen anytime soon.
"We do not presently have a predetermined schedule for when this collection will be processed and available to the public," Angela Fritz, interim head for UA's library special collections, wrote in an email to the Democrat-Gazette. She wrote that the archive "will be accessible to the public, once it has been processed and cataloged."
Working with a film festival's archive has its complications, said Jan-Christopher Horak, director of the UCLA Film & Television Archive, part of the University of California, Los Angeles.
Such holdings must first be cataloged and inspected, Horak said.
"That is a very time-consuming and extremely expensive process," said Horak.
Pledger declined to estimate how many items have been handed over to UA, but said the trove covers the first 21 years of the festival, with items from more recent years to be turned over later. The university announced the size of the holdings as nearly 300 linear feet, a special unit of measure used by archivists to describe the amount of shelf or drawer space needed for archives; the material fills about 250 boxes, according to Fritz.
Horak said the legal concept of fair use allows for researchers to travel to UCLA to view the archived films in its Outfest UCLA Legacy Project for LGBT Moving Image Preservation.
But "to put that material online, that is prohibited unless you have actually cleared those rights," Horak said, adding, "once you're talking about rights, you're talking about a lot of money for lawyers to clear those matters up."
Pledger noted the value in the home movies chronicling the festival.
"That footage, we do of course own," Pledger said. Visitors to Hot Springs over the years have included actor James Earl Jones and filmmaker Ken Burns.
Pledger said talks to turn over archives to UA began around May of last year. The university announced the acquisition Jan. 14, but Pledger said the materials were physically handed over about two months ago to UA's special collections.
"We're just honored to be there," Pledger said.
She said she expects a "blowout" event this year to celebrate what will be the 25th annual film festival, to be held Oct. 7-16, describing the event as having grown in significance to the state and within the ranks of such festivals.
Funds from the Walton Family Foundation helped with preserving items before this next chapter in the festival's history, Pledger said, adding that she's glad to turn over the archive for professionals to sift through it.
"Really, it's a question more of the things that we can't go out and buy, that are not available and that have never been released," Pledger said of the archive.
Metro on 01/25/2016