American Film Institute

The historic Spanish Colonial Revival style AFI campus in Los Angeles, in the Los Feliz district of L.A.

The institute is composed of leaders from the film, entertainment, business, and academic communities. The board of trustees is chaired by Kathleen Kennedy and the board of directors chaired by Robert A. Daly guide the organization, which is led by President and CEO, film historian Bob Gazzale. Prior leaders were founding director George Stevens Jr. (from the organization's inception in 1967 until 1980) and Jean Picker Firstenberg (from 1980 to 2007).[2]

The American Film Institute was founded by a 1965 presidential mandate announced in the Rose Garden of the White House by Lyndon B. Johnson—to establish a national arts organization to preserve the legacy of American film heritage, educate the next generation of filmmakers, and honor the artists and their work. Two years later, in 1967, AFI was established, supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Ford Foundation.[3]

The original 22-member Board of Trustees included actor Gregory Peck as chairman and actor Sidney Poitier as vice-chairman, as well as director Francis Ford Coppola, film historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., lobbyist Jack Valenti, and other representatives from the arts and academia.[4]

The institute established a training program for filmmakers known then as the Center for Advanced Film Studies. Also created in the early years were a repertory film exhibition program at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the AFI Catalog of Feature Films — a scholarly source for American film history. The institute moved to its current eight-acre Hollywood campus in 1981.[5] The film training program grew into the AFI Conservatory, an accredited graduate school.

AFI moved its presentation of first-run and auteur films from the Kennedy Center to the historic AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, which hosts the AFI DOCS film festival, making AFI the largest nonprofit film exhibitor in the world. AFI educates audiences and recognizes artistic excellence through its awards programs and 10 Top 10 Lists.

In 2017, then-aspiring filmmaker Ilana Bar-Din Giannini claimed that the AFI expelled her after she accused Dezso Magyar of sexually harassing her in the early 1980s.[6]

AFI educational and cultural programs include:

• American Film Institute Awards – an honor celebrating the creative ensembles of the most outstanding motion picture and television programs of the year
• AFI Catalog of Feature Films and AFI Archive – the written history of all feature films during the first 100 years of the art form – accessible free online[7]
• AFI Conservatory – a film school led by master filmmakers in a graduate-level program[8]
• AFI Directing Workshop for Women – a production-based training program committed to increasing the number of women working professionally in screen directing[9]
• AFI Life Achievement Award – a tradition since 1973, a high honor for a career in film[10]
• AFI 100 Years... series – television events and movie reference lists[11]
• AFI's two film festivals – AFI Fest in Los Angeles and AFI Docs in Washington, D.C., and Silver Spring, Maryland[12][13]
• AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center – a historic theater with year-round art house, first-run and classic film programming in Silver Spring, Maryland[14]
• American Film – a magazine launched in October 1975 that explores the art of new and historic film classics, now a blog on AFI.com[15][16]

In 1969, the institute established the AFI Conservatory for Advanced Film Studies at Greystone, the Doheny Mansion in Beverly Hills, California. The first class included filmmakers Terrence Malick, Caleb Deschanel, and Paul Schrader.[17] That program grew into the AFI Conservatory, an accredited graduate film school located in the hills above Hollywood, California, providing training in six filmmaking disciplines: cinematography, directing, editing, producing, production design, and screenwriting. Mirroring a professional production environment, Fellows collaborate to make more films than any other graduate level program. Admission to AFI Conservatory is highly selective, with a maximum of 140 graduates per year.[18]

In 2013, Emmy and Oscar-winning director, producer, and screenwriter James L. Brooks (As Good as It Gets, Broadcast News, Terms of Endearment) joined as the artistic director of the AFI Conservatory where he provides leadership for the film program.[19] Brooks' artistic role at the AFI Conservatory has a rich legacy that includes Daniel Petrie, Jr., Robert Wise, and Frank Pierson. Award-winning director Bob Mandel served as dean of the AFI Conservatory for nine years. Jan Schuette took over as dean in 2014 and served until 2017. Film producer Richard Gladstein was dean from 2017 until 2019, when Susan Ruskin was appointed.[20]

AFI released a set of hour-long programs reviewing the career of acclaimed directors. The Directors Series content was copyrighted in 1997 by Media Entertainment Inc and The American Film Institute, and the VHS and DVDs were released between 1999 and 2001 on Winstar TV and Video.[26]

Directors featured included:

• British Film Institute, the British equivalent to AFI

Wikimedia Commons has media related to American Film Institute.

• Official website
• American Film Institute on Internet Archive
• AFI Los Angeles Film Festival – history and information (archived 17 July 2009)
• American Film Institute collected news and commentary at The New York Times