Andrea Battleground, Assistant Director of Archives at Film at Lincoln Center (Photo courtesy of Andrea Battleground)
New York, NY (May 23, 2024) – Film at Lincoln Center (FLC) President Lesli Klainberg announces the creation of FLC Archives and the appointment of Andrea Battleground as Assistant Director of Archives to manage the initiative. FLC Archives will serve as a formal record of the organization’s contributions to global film culture, collecting the physical and digital records related to the origins and activities of Film at Lincoln Center across seven decades. FLC Archives includes materials related to the organization’s signature events and legacy projects, beginning with the first New York Film Festival in 1963, FLC’s founding as an entity within Lincoln Center in 1969, the annual Chaplin Award Gala, and the publication history of Film Comment since 1962. The collection includes thousands of FLC programs, photographs, and media from events; New York Film Festival posters; artist portraits; and more than 30 years of recorded artist talks.
The creation of FLC Archives, the official and permanent repository for the records of Film at Lincoln Center, is made possible due to the substantial initial support of the Wendy Keys and Donald A. Pels Archive Fund, newly established by FLC with the support of the Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust.
Archivist Andrea Battleground will steward the archive’s creation, development, and maintenance. She is charged with assessing and preserving the physical and digital records of institutional and cultural importance. Establishing the FLC Archives demonstrates a deep commitment to ensuring the continued existence and relevance of the materials in FLC’s collections.
Lesli Klainberg, President of Film at Lincoln Center said, “This generous grant from the Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust has allowed us to launch the archive initiative by supporting the hiring of an archives professional in Andrea to collect, preserve, and make more accessible records related to the origins and activities of Film at Lincoln Center over the past 61 years. Our goal is to make it accessible to students and others conducting research, but in the meantime we will continue to raise additional funds to further bolster the program as it expands and develops.”
“The FLC Archives will stand as a testament to the rich history of Film at Lincoln Center and the legendary filmmakers and actors we have worked with over the years,” says FLC Board Member Wendy Keys. “To have a record of the many filmmakers who debuted at the New York Film Festival and other FLC programs and then went on to become the most celebrated voices of their generations will be an invaluable asset to the film community in New York and worldwide.”
“I’m thrilled to lead this effort to document and make more legible the history and evolution of Film at Lincoln Center and the role it’s played and continues to play in film culture,” says Assistant Director of Archives Andrea Battleground. “Our intention is for this archive to be a resource for storytelling for years to come.”
Learn more about the FLC Archives here.
ANDREA BATTLEGROUND
Andrea Battleground is an archival program director, curator, and oral historian with 16 years of experience with archival stewardship and collection activations. Prior to joining Film at Lincoln Center, she held archival positions at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Battleground curated the 2016 Black Ballots Mixtape and the 2021 Made In Harlem film program and co-facilitated the “Black Film as Protest” virtual film series. She has co-created oral history projects with BOMB Magazine and The Gates Preserve and was recently selected for the 2024 cohort of the Archives Leadership Institute. Her areas of interest engage time-based media archives, moving image and oral testimony as they relate to histories of the African diaspora in the U.S., and holistic approaches to archival practices.
FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER
Film at Lincoln Center (FLC) is a nonprofit organization that celebrates cinema as an essential art form and fosters a vibrant home for film culture to thrive. FLC presents premier film festivals, retrospectives, new releases, and restorations year-round in state-of-the-art theaters at New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. FLC offers audiences the opportunity to discover works from established and emerging directors worldwide with a passionate community of film lovers at marquee events including the New York Film Festival and New Directors/New Films.
Founded in 1969, FLC is committed to preserving the excitement of the theatrical experience for all audiences, advancing high-quality film journalism through the publication of Film Comment, cultivating the next generation of film industry professionals through our FLC Academies, and enriching the lives of all who engage with our programs.
Film at Lincoln Center receives generous, year-round support from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. For more information, visit filmlinc.org and follow @filmlinc on X and Instagram.
