AUSTIN -The Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin together with Robert De Niro will mark the Ransom Center's 65th anniversary with a star-studded gala "A Celebration of Film." Taking place Sept. 24 at the AT&T Hotel and Conference Center in Austin, attendees will join De Niro for an evening celebrating filmmaking and film history.
In appreciation of his continued dedication to the Center and our mission, a new endowment will be created called the De Niro Curator of Film.
"It is a privilege to welcome Robert De Niro , a great friend of the Ransom Center and ardent supporter of the arts, to Austin as we celebrate 65 years of archiving important American cultural history," said Harry Ransom Center Director Stephen Enniss. "This endowment will support the ongoing work to preserve film history and inspire the next generation of filmmakers."
The "Celebration of Film" gala will highlight the impact and legacy of film archival history and will benefit the Center's film collection and research mission. As part of the university's What Starts Here campaign, the event will generate critically needed funding for the new endowment to preserve and expand the collection.
"I strongly believe in and support what the Harry Ransom Center does to open the creative process of filmmaking to students and the community," De Niro said. "The Center has done a remarkable job curating a breadth of collections underscoring the history of the art form and the business."
The Ransom Center's film archive tells the stories of significant Hollywood producers, directors, writers and actors from the silent era and the Golden Age of Hollywood through the rise of independent studios and into the age of blockbusters and the new millennium. De Niro donated his archive documenting his cinematic career in 2006 with additional contributions of materials through the present, adding to the Center's vast collection of records and objects related to landmark films in American culture.
Covering so many aspects of filmmaking-from scripts and production records to costumes, props, film and video-the Robert De Niro Papers are unlike any other film archive. It is a significant collection in the Center's holdings related to Hollywood filmmaking of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Scholars and students can follow the development of films from the printed page to the screen by exploring this vast collection.
