The mission of The Academic Film Archive of North America (AFA) is to acquire, preserve, document, and promote academic film by providing an archive, resource, and forum for continuing scholarly advancement and public exhibition. The AFA defines academic film as any film in the broad subject areas of the Humanities and Sciences which were sold into secondary school, university, and public libraries. 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. The AFA is the only institution in the U.S. dedicated to documenting the history of this imprtant film genre, now endangered by the movement by many media libraries to divest their film collections. The AFA also engages in special research projects, and documents and collects films that consist of rare or unusual material relating to social conventions and mores.

The AFA's holdings consist of approximately 6,000 16mm films. A recent audit indicated that approximately 12% of the AFA's 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, thereby contributing significantly to the history of film, society, and education.

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