The San Francisco Media Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit institution that was established in the year 2000. SFMA was initially founded by its original director, the incredibly knowledgable cinephile, the infamous Stephen Parr. Stephen Parr passed away in 2017, but left his indelible mark on the world of film, especially in his work to demonstrate the crucial importance of the ongoing preservation and presentation of vintage film and video.

Parr’s legacy here continues as SFMA has gone on to archive, restore and maintain the existing collection and to receive more and more valuable donations of home movies, rare archival footage and vintage films and trailers. Here at SFMA we work to see that those images’ use can evolve and remain vital within current projects as stock footage, research material, educational resources, and more. Many of these rescued vintage films and videos are extremely rare and some are one-of-a-kind, only in existence within the incredibly unique collection here at San Francisco Media Archive.

making an impact

SFMA is committed to preserving the legacy of our culture and history by literally diving in to various places and situations and saving thousands of films, tapes and stills. We are then dedicated to archiving and maintaining each and every image for future generations to enjoy and learn from. Since its start in 2000, SFMA has rescued over 10,000 films, videos and photographs from obscurity on a forgotten shelf or worse from landing in a trash bin somewhere, Those reels, videos, and photographs are carefully stored, archived, maintained and one by one, digitized in our online database. Your donation makes our work continuing to save these treasures possible (and it’s tax deductible!).