Oscar-winning film director Martin Scorsese is spearheading a new body aimed at salvaging neglected films.
Scorsese - who has made Raging Bull, Taxi Driver and The Departed - launched the World Cinema Foundation (WCF) at the Cannes Film Festival.
He was joined by a dozen top directors, including Stephen Frears, who will highlight homegrown films from their own countries worth rescuing.
But Scorsese said the WCF would focus on films from developing countries.
Scorsese told reporters he feared seminal foreign films could deteriorate or disappear entirely.
Foreign films on television... introduced so many different cultures to me and I found I was fed by those cultures
Martin Scorsese"Coming from a working-class background in New York, my parents were not educated and weren't in the habit of reading books," the 66-year-old director said.
Scorsese - who has made Raging Bull, Taxi Driver and The Departed - launched the World Cinema Foundation (WCF) at the Cannes Film Festival.He was joined by a dozen top directors, including Stephen Frears, who will highlight homegrown films from their own countries worth rescuing.
But Scorsese said the WCF would focus on films from developing countries.
Scorsese told reporters he feared seminal foreign films could deteriorate or disappear entirely.
Foreign films on television... introduced so many different cultures to me and I found I was fed by those cultures
Martin Scorsese"Coming from a working-class background in New York, my parents were not educated and weren't in the habit of reading books," the 66-year-old director said.
"This opened up a whole world to me, foreign films on television, and introduced so many different cultures to me.
"I found I was fed by those cultures, and I think the same thing has happened all around the world."
The Queen director Frears, who is chairing the Cannes award jury this year, added his voice to the call for the restoration of older films.
He said the British Film Institute (BFI) need more money to help maintain its archive.
