The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television has stepped up to support the film and television-related programming of the Audio-Visual Preservation Trust.

The Trust, which folded last fall after Ottawa backed out of the Canadian Feature Films Education and Access program and the Canadian Musical Memories program, was founded in 1996 to preserve and restore film, television and audio recordings.

The Academy says it will move forward with many of the Trust’s founding partners, including Telefilm Canada, the NFB, and Library and Archives Canada. Exact details of the partnerships have yet to be released.

The Trust will also maintain the existing partnership behind the Astral Restoration Program, which began in 2000 with the goal of restoring and re-releasing classic Canadian films. True to his word, when the Trust faced oblivion last fall, Astral Television Networks president John Riley asserted that ‘It is our intention to continue these activities in the future.’ Astral has contributed roughly $700,000 to the Trust in all.