June 29, 2000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:  Leslie Unger - (310) 247-3000

                         lunger@oscars.org

Beverly Hills, CA - A newly restored print of "A Matter of Life and Death" (1946) will be screened by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Friday, July 21, at 8 p.m., in the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The restoration work on the film was executed by the Academy Film Archive and Sony Pictures Entertainment, in collaboration with the British Film Institute's National Film, Television and Video Archive.

"A Matter of Life and Death" (aka "Stairway to Heaven") stars David Niven, Kim Hunter, Robert Coote, Kathleen Byron, Richard Attenborough, Bonar Colleano, Joan Maude, Marius Goring and Roger Livesey. The film was written, produced and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and blends fantasy and reality in its tale of Royal Air Force pilot Peter Carter (Niven), who is forced to bail out of his plane. Over his radio, he shares what he believes to be his last words with June, a member of the Women's Army Corps (Hunter). Carter survives his parachute landing in the ocean and eventually meets and falls in love with June. But Heavenly Conductor Number 71 (Goring) discovers that Carter's survival was a mistake and thus his fate is up for debate.

The film has previously benefited from restoration work, but with rapid advancements in the field in recent years, the Academy and Sony worked together to make new preservation elements from the original three-strip nitrate negative (held at the National Film, Television and Video Archive in London). A new interpositive and internegative were created and the soundtrack negative was digitally transferred and rerecorded to remove accumulated damage. The resulting print will be introduced by Sony's Grover Crisp.

Tickets for "A Matter of Life and Death" are $5 for the general public and $3 for Academy members. They may be purchased in advance at the Academy during regular business hours, by mail, or on the night of the screening, if still available, when the doors open at 7 p.m. The Academy is located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. For more information call 310-247-3600.