A regional film archive and movie theater in Bucksport that’s had operations upended by two separate federal funding problems this year is starting to bounce back.
There’s still a chance it will have to lay off staff next year, though its director is optimistic fundraising can help fill the budget gap.
Northeast Historic Film, a nonprofit that also runs the historic Alamo Theatre, has recorded, stored and shared regional historic films since the 1980s. It also digitizes home film for customers and licenses footage for documentaries.
Earlier this year, its largest grant in years was yanked unexpectedly by the Department of Governmental Efficiency, or DOGE, taking about $206,000 that remained of a $341,000 award. In the fall, its other major grant was inaccessible during the shutdown, creating an “unprecedented deficit” in its budget, according to director and co-founder David Weiss.
As of this week, it has access again to that second grant, Weiss said Monday. He’s still hoping to fundraise enough before the end of the year to avoid laying off staff as a result of the DOGE cuts.
The grant that was cut, which had been funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities, supported a project to finish cataloging, digitizing and uploading thousands of tapes from all Maine television stations from 1953 until 2008. That project started in 1999, according to the nonprofit’s website.
DOGE wrote in an April letter that the NEH grant “no longer effectuates the agency’s needs and priorities,” and its “immediate termination is necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government, including its fiscal priorities,” according to Weiss.
Publicity over that loss brought in $40,000 in donations shortly after, and another $50,000 grant was able to patch the budget together for 2025, Weiss said.
But then, during the government shutdown this fall, the nonprofit lost access to funds from its other major grant through the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. That grant, which was almost complete, funded digitizing 1970s footage from the Boston news station WCVB and making it available to watch online.
Together, the losses suddenly created a “huge hole” in the nonprofit’s budget, Weiss wrote in a December letter to donors, despite adjusting priorities, trying to defer expenses and doing more fundraising.
The nonprofit has survived the year without layoffs by changing some of its focus to cut costs and increase revenue, Weiss said. That included doing more paid cataloging work for clients who use its climate-controlled storage vault.
Money became available again from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission this week, Weiss said Monday, and his nonprofit has managed to “plug some of the holes” as year-end fundraising comes in — a critical period for how the nonprofit will address the coming year.
It’s still possible Northeast Historic Film will end up in the red and have to lay off staff, but Weiss said he’s optimistic it won’t come to that. It has received other grants, donations are coming in and the nonprofit is part of a class-action lawsuit challenging the funding cuts, which he hopes might restore them.
Northeast Historic Film also still wants to finish that Maine television project, he said.
Overall, the funding upheaval has meant the nonprofit has to focus on what it thought it had already solved instead of looking ahead, according to Weiss.
“It slows us down and sets us back,” he said.
