Built into the side of a mountain in Culpeper, Virginia, is a massive underground vault containing some of cinema’s most priceless works of art.
Located in the heart of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center on the Library of Congress’ Packard Campus, the Nitrate Film Vault contains nearly 150,000 reels of pre-1951 film shot on nitrate stock.
At one point, nitrate was universally used in the film industry, which is why so many classics are stored there.
The vault contains the world’s largest collection of original studio negatives from all the big Hollywood studios, such as Columbia Pictures, Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures, RKO Pictures and Warner Bros.
In this episode of “Matt About Town,” WTOP’s Matt Kaufax takes you behind the scenes to a place few people in the region get to see.
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