The Anthology Film Archive opens on November 30, 1970, at Joseph Papp’s Public Theater. The archive evolved from roots and visions that go back to the early 1960s, when Jonas Mekas, the director of the Film-Makers’ Cinematheque, a showcase for avant-garde films, dreamed of establishing a permanent home where the growing number of new independent/avant-garde films could be shown on a regular basis. The Archive emerges out of the Film-Makers’ Cooperative founded in 1962 with Emile de Antonio, an association of independent experimental filmmakers that the Film-Makers’ Cinematheque is connected to as a forum for screening experimental films since 1964.