The King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (www.kfcris.com) was founded in 1983 as an educational and intellectual arm of the King Faisal Philanthropic Foundation. With more than one million books, rare manuscripts and audiovisual material throughout its four libraries, KFCRIS is a major world resource on Islamic civilization. The center provides comprehensive logistical support to students and researchers free of charge. Using state-of-the-art preservation methods for its collections, KFCRIS fosters scholarship starting with the children’s library and continuing through to translations of the world’s rarest manuscripts and scientific treatise.
In December 2005, it was announced that the Franklin Film Archive of the Middle East had donated a copy of its archives to KFCRIS. Valued by experts at $45 million, the 120-hour film archive, never before available to the public, has been lauded as a unique historical asset.
The Franklin Film Archive of the Middle East was created as Jo Franklin filmed throughout the area from 1980 through 1994 for several acclaimed documentaries — “Saudi Arabia” (1981), “The Oil Kingdoms” (1983), “Days of Rage: The Young Palestinians” (1989) and “Islam: A Civilization and its Art” (1994).
In addition to the broadcast documentaries, the Franklin Film Archive contains 111 hours of unaired footage obtained as the filmmaker took her cameras to Middle Eastern cities, villages and deserts. She documented the landscapes and interviewed kings, presidents, women, children, businessmen, bedouins, historians and religious leaders about their lifestyle, politics, history, art, religion, defense and economics.
In explaining the choice of KFCRIS as the only recipient of a copy of the archives, Franklin said: “It is their history and should reside with them. It is my deepest hope that the different cultures of the world come to better understand and appreciate their differences and similarities in an effort toward peace. I have always felt that the King Faisal Center, headed by Ambassador Turki Al Faisal, shares that vision and goal.”