The World Cinema Project (WCP), formerly World Cinema Foundation, is a non-profit organization devoted to the preservation and restoration of neglected world cinema, founded by Martin Scorsese.
Founded in 2007 as the World Cinema Foundation by American filmmaker Martin Scorsese,[1] it was inspired by the work of The Film Foundation in the United States, a similar venture which Scorsese founded with George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg and Clint Eastwood in 1990.
Trances, a music documentary about Nass El Ghiwane an influential Moroccan music group, was picked by Martin Scorsese as the inaugural release for the foundation; it was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007 and at Djemaa el-Fna square in Morocco.
[2] The World Cinema Foundation is backed by an advisory board "Filmmaker Council" which includes Martin Scorsese, Fatih Akin, Souleymane Cissé, Guillermo del Toro, Stephen Frears, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Wong Kar-Wai, Abbas Kiarostami, Deepa Mehta, Ermanno Olmi, Raoul Peck, Cristi Puiu, Walter Salles, Abderrahmane Sissako, Elia Suleiman, Bertrand Tavernier, Wim Wenders, and Tian Zhuangzhuang.
[3] After leaving his position at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Kent Jones became the foundation's executive director.[when?