The American Film Institute (AFI) is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act.
The American Film Institute operated the National Film Theatre in Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center until 1998. Prior to Kennedy Center, it screened films in the auditorium of the National Gallery of Art. In April 2003, AFI re-opened the 1938 AFI Silver theatre in Silver Spring, Maryland just north of Washington.
Read more about American Film Institute: History, AFI Conservatory
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