During the past two years, impelled in part by world events that unfolded following September 11, 2001, I have become fascinated by the films of the Marshall Plan. Each time I speak about this cache of "lost films," the response is similar: wonder, curiosity, and inevitably the comment, "what incredible timing." More than 50 years after the fact, what’s so timely? And why does the Marshall Plan enjoy an almost universal reputation for its healing effect? The answers lie in this historic exhibition of 25 films – an illuminating cross-section of the over 250 titles produced from 1948 to 1953 under the aegis of the post-World War II European Recovery Program (ERP), known as "the Marshall Plan." Included in the exhibition are four important pre-Marshall Plan titles, produced by the Office of Military Government/U.S. (OMGUS) in Berlin. They include the flagship film Me and Mr. Marshall; Hunger, BetweenWest and East, and It's Up To You! These four films provide an insight into the re-integration of Germany (a prerequisite for the European community to flourish), and set the stage for understanding the Marshall Plan’s broader educational and economic objectives.

Marshall Plan films were produced at the Paris headquarters and by European filmmakers working out of 18 country missions (including the city-state of Trieste). under the supervision of four successive film chiefs - Lothar Wolff, Stuart Schulberg, Nils Nilson, and Albert Hemsing. I speak above of "lost" films; but thanks to the efforts of one extraordinarly dedicated film archivist -- Linda Christenson -- most of them have been found. From 1999 to 2002, she located in the U.S. and Europe 795 prints of the approximately 250 Marshall Plan films, and created the Marshall Plan Filmography, which can be viewed at www.marshallfilms.org. She was aided in her research by the invaluable memoir and annotated list of over 117 films created shortly before his death by Al Hemsing. Yet, as Mrs. Christenson readily acknowledges, there are films coming to light that she has never seen. We hope this program will stimulate archivists, historians, and surviving family members of the Marshall Plan filmmakers to come forward with titles that could be added to the Christenson filmography. Of the extant prints, 200 films and pieces of footage, including 187 different titles, are available at the U.S. National Archives., but there is no one place to see them all. If I use the word "lost" to describe these films, it is because they have been almost entirely lost from view. Only a few have been seen in Europe or America since they were made. In the U.S., where there was a legal ban on showing Marshall Plan films (except for those specially made or edited for a U.S. audience and shown at the time), we know of no public presentations since the ban was lifted in 1990, thanks to legislation introduced by Senator John Kerry.

British historian David Ellwood, a professor at Italy’s University of Bologna, is the foremost expert on the aims and methods of the Marshall Plan's public information program. According to him, the single overarching goal of the information program was to paint a convincing picture of rising expectations – a vision of a future in which Europeans could aspire to prosperity American-style. This was a remarkable promise in countries that had been physically and emotionally devastated by years of war. In this laboratory of hostility and hope, film was used as a medium for social change. Created in an atmosphere of experimentation and, for the most part, by people at the beginning of their careers, the Marshall Plan films found myriad entertaining ways to tell the same story: "Help is on the way, there’s hope for the future, you can do it!"

This exploration has involved a personal journey. I was conceived during the Berlin Blockade while my father was head of the OMGUS film unit, and born in Paris shortly after he was named chief of the Marshall Plan Motion Picture Section. Until I had the opportunity to screen the films for our Selling Democracy retrospective, I didn’t realize the extent to which they had shaped my earliest consciousness, the same way they shaped the consciousness of millions of other European postwar children. Now it is our turn on the main stage. As we look at the wars going on around the world, perhaps we can learn from and draw inspiration from the films of the Marshall Plan.

Sandra Schulberg, Project Director, Selling Democracy