The mission of The Academic Film Archive of North America is to acquire, preserve, document, and promote academic film by providing an archive, resource, and forum for continuing scholarly advancement and public exhibition. They define academic film as any film sold into secondary school, university, and public libraries, in the areas of the Humanities and Sciences. Such films might have been made by educational film companies, television networks, non-profit organizations, business entities, or other institutions making films with the intent to educate. They also engage in special research projects, and are the only institution in the U.S. dedicated to documenting the history of this endangered film genre. We also document and collect films that consist of rare or unusual material relating to social conventions and mores.

The holdings consist of approximately 6,000 films, and a recent audit indicated that approximately 12% of our collection consists of films that are no longer in distribution.

The objective of the Academic Film Archive as it relates to the Internet Archive is to provide public access to films that are no longer in distribution, and to contribute greatly to the history of film, society, and education.

Please click www.afana.org for more information including biographies and filmographies of significant academic filmmakers.