Astral Television Networks has contributed $500,000 through Moviepix to AV Preservation Trust of Canada.

Astral’s ongoing financial support by the trust is specifically aimed at the preservation and restoration of Canadian films, some of which have been almost destroyed over time.

Among the films Moviepix has been instrumental in restoring is Tit Coq, a 1953 Quebec feature directed by Gratien Gelinas, which in its restored and newly subtitled version was screened this year at the Toronto International Film Festival. Bush Pilot, produced in 1946 and directed by Sterling Campbell and Jack W. Ogilvie, was restored and broadcast on Moviepix in 1999. And Centenary Snapshots, a series of nine of Canada’s earliest short reels that were restored and transferred from paper to film, were unveiled at the 1995 tiff in celebration of 100 years of Canadian cinema.

Moviepix has also provided funding for the purchase of a conversion prism, which allows the transfer of 28mm film to video and is used to restore rare silent film footage from 1913 to 1929. *

-www.astral.com