File Photo: Director Steven Spielberg poses on the red carpet as he arrives for the screening of the film "The BFG" at the 69th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, May 14, 2016. (Xinhua/Jin Yu)

by Julia Pierrepont III

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Hollywood A-listers, Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan, joined the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), The Film Foundation (FF), and the American Cinematheque (AC) for a special program to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the Golden Globe Awards.

The move is also aimed at joining the three organizations' commitment to promoting the preservation and restoration of classic films.

As part of the special program, the screenings include Elia Kazan's "A Face In The Crowd", the Powell & Pressburger's masterpiece "The Red Shoes", Robert Altman's "Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean", the first cinematic version of "Death Of A Salesman", and Indian director Satyajit Ray's acclaimed "Apu Trilogy."

Newly-elected HFPA President Meher Tatna said in a recent interview with Xinhua that "as we celebrate the incredible milestone of the 75th anniversary of the Golden Globe Awards, we're so proud to be able to continue to share these timeless stories with the world."

Tatna said "by restoring these iconic films with our partners at the Film Foundation, we are ensuring that cinematic art and culture will live on, and future generations can rejoice at these classic films as we did and still do today."

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, founded in the 1940's, is the most highly regarded and successful foreign press organization in Hollywood and represents respected publications from 56 countries around the globe.

Holding the Golden Globe Awards every year to recognize the best and the brightest talents in the film and television industry, it is one of the most-viewed award shows in America, after the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards.

Co-hosting the screenings is the Film Foundation (FF), founded in 1990 by Academy Award-winning director, Martin Scorsese.

On film aficionados, Scorsese said "they are driven by that hunger, that passion for art, to see it, to feel it, to be inspired by it, and maybe to become artists themselves."

The Film Foundation's mission is to protect and preserve irreplaceable works of cinematic art that are a fundamental part of the world's cultural history.

By working in partnership with archives and studios, the foundation has helped restore over 750 films from 21 different countries representing the rich diversity of world cinema.

Also co-hosting the screenings is the American Cinematheque (AC), a non-profit, viewer-supported film exhibition and cultural organization that sponsors film and video screenings from American and world cinema classics to new independent films and cutting-edge digital programs.

AC pairs these screenings with exciting talks with talented filmmakers and a glittering array of Hollywood luminaries to create once-in-a-lifetime experiences for their viewers.

On Sept. 21, Academy Award-winning director, producer and Film Foundation board member, Steven Speilberg opened the HFPA/FF/AC screening series in a packed theater by greeting the audience warmly.

He said "you being here is proof enough that each and everyone of you understands the art of cinema and are film-lovers, so thank you for that."

He chose to screen Elia Kazan's iconic "A Face in the Crowd", a film about the meteoric political rise of a popular TV personality, folk-hero turned unscrupulous demagogue.

It earned Kazan a "Best Director" nomination in 1958 from the prestigious Director's Guild of America.

Speilberg said in a recent interview with Xinhua that "it is nothing short of a masterpiece -- way ahead of its time, foreshadowing with a chilling degree of insight today's obsession with celebrity and power ...the character of Lonesome Rhodes is charismatic and detestable. He is folksy and he is cynical. He's full of warmth, but also riddled with contempt."

The audience gave the film a standing ovation and Hollywood director John Landis told Xinhua that it is "a profoundly prescient film foretelling the current madness going on in Washington."

The following night, eminent Hollywood director, producer and three-time Oscar nominee Christoper Nolan, chose to screen the Academy Award-winning "The Red Shoes", about a world class ballerina torn between the man she loves and her obsession with dance -- a favorite of Martin Scorsese too.

As an expensive film to restore, Nolan stressed the vital importance of preserving superb, influential films like "The Red Shoes" in their original artistic form.

File Photo: Director Christopher Nolan speaks at the 30th annual American Cinematheque Award ceremony in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., October 14, 2016. (Xinhua/REUTERS)

"It's vital, this correspondence between the actual substance of the film and how it is presented to the audience, how it sounds, what the feeling is in the darkened theater where you get to experience that. It's very three dimensional process...." Nolan told Xinhua.

He explained that "film restoration cements and solidifies important connections between generations of filmmakers."

"When you are looking at the importance of film history, looking for these connections ..they are not always obvious. Sometimes it is something like the color, the sound, a particular way of doing things, a particular tone that arises that can only be experienced and passed on from generation to generation by preserving and restoring the experience of watching that (original) film," he added.

Tatna also said in an interview with Xinhua that "the Golden Globes is just a small part of what we do. Much of our focus is funding scholarships, film education, restoration and preservation, community outreach, and charity programs," such as the American Cinematheque, the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women, the Filmmakers Project and many others.

With approximately 30 million U.S. dollars in proceeds from past Golden Globe Awards being donated to charities or educational works over the past decade or so, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is likely to continue to be a vibrant force in the Hollywood community for many years to come.