About Us
Lewis and Jennava
We are a father and daughter filmmaking duo. Lewis Laska acquired the over one million feet of archival 16mm film when a local news station discarded it. Rescuing dumpster loads of raw film from 1951 to 1973, the archive has everything from major world events to lifestyle footage of the American southeast, Lewis kept the enormous collection in storage for decades. Years later, Jennava earned her BFA and MFA in film production. Film technology advances made it possible to do scanning from the tangible film medium to a high definition digital format. Finally making it possible to review and restore the thousands of unnamed, unarchived film reels. During the 2020 pandemic, Lewis and Jennava decided to use the lockdown time to begin the digital transfer of the 16mm footage. The Laska Archive is bringing back the past for contemporary audiences.
Unique, Captivating, Iconic
One of the worlds largest private collections of archival 16mm footage. The Laska Archive collection is a source for footage that you simply can't get anywhere else. Browse our collection of nostalgic, historical films.
Collaborate
Your first step is to send us a message about your project. We can assist in all aspects of production from research to pre-production stages to post production and distribution. Let us know how we can your film come to life.
Trailer - Chronicles of the Archive
Archival American History Film
Footage from the United States of America during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
Archival World History Film
Looking for footage of a historical event? We probably have some film news coverage of it.
Archival Still Images
We also have over 500,000 archival illustrations and images from 1829 to 1949 that we can source for your projects.
Subscribe
Contact Us
Let's Get Started!
Tell us a little bit about your project. We will get back to you as soon as you can with some ideas of how we can make your story shine.
Hours
By appointment only.