NFPF News

Six “Lost” Films Premiering on the NFPF Website

An Iguanodon demonstrates what life was like Fifty Million Years Ago (1925).

Now available for viewing are the first fruits of the NFPF’s partnership with EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. Six newly preserved American silent films, almost all unseen since their original release more than 80 years ago, are now freely available to the public, complete with new music and program notes.

Chicago Rodeo (1920) depicts Tex Austin’s rodeo show, held in Chicago’s Grant Park in July 1920, and includes appearances by Ruth Roach, Foghorn Clancy, and “Yiddish Cowboy” Dizzy Izzy Broad. Clarence Cheats at Croquet (1915) is a comedy from the Thanhouser Film Corporation involving a jealous lover with no sense of fair play—its preservation was co-funded by Thanhouser Company Film Preservation, Inc. Both films were preserved through the Library of Congress.

The Darling of the C.S.A. (1912), … Read more

New in the Screening Room—A Regular Bouquet: Mississippi Summer (1964)

Students at a Freedom School in Mississippi in 1964, photographed by Richard Beymer. Courtesy Washington University Film & Media Archive.

Actor Richard Beymer took a Bolex camera to Misissippi in the Freedom Summer of 1964. He documented the African American community alongside his fellow activists and volunteers working to register black voters and provide educational instruction to children. The film has been preserved by the Washington University Film & Media Archive with a grant from the NFPF. The New York Times profiled the film on the occasion of its 50th anniversary here.

Beymer’s film is an astonishing document of a turbulent moment in American history. He captures the joy of community life while at the same time providing a clear-eyed view of the struggle for equality. Nadia Ghasedi, who leads the Visual Media Research Lab at Washington University, … Read more

NFPF Preserved Films at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto

Anna May Wong in Drifting (1923).

Held annually in Pordenone, northern Italy, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto is the biggest and most prestigious silent film festival in the world. The 34th edition, beginning October 3, will showcase five films preserved through the NFPF’s grant programs.

From George Eastman House come two premieres of recently completed restorations. Thirty Years of Motion Pictures (1927) is a film adaptation of pioneering producer and publicist Terry Ramsaye's history book on the early movie industry, A Million and One Nights (1926). The documentary includes scenes from lost films such as D.W. Griffith’s 1914 version of The Battle of the Sexes.

Drifting (1923) is Todd Browning’s underworld saga about opium smuggling in China, starring Priscilla Dean, Wallace Beery, and Anna May Wong. GEH has restored the film by drawing on a nitrate print from the Nardoni Film … Read more

Orphan Film Spotlight—Roach’s Lullaby (1973) and Welcome to Spivey’s Corner (1978)

Coharie elder Leonard Emanuel demonstrates hollerin' techniques in Welcome to Spivey's Corner (1978).

Thanks to everyone who attended last week’s Exploratorium screening of films preserved through NFPF funding. Those who couldn’t make it will be glad to know two of the screening’s biggest hits can be watched online.

Roach’s Lullaby (1973), preserved by the New York Public Library, was praised by the New York Times as a witty and “bold excursion into one of the city’s great conflicts—the war against the roach.” The documentary profiles three New Yorkers who demonstrate eccentric methods of pest removal. Directed by Claudia Weill and Eli Noyes, Roach’s Lullaby is a prime example of on-the-go, hand-held 16mm documentary-making. And yes, it has a song about roaches.

Welcome to Spivey’s Corner (1978), directed by Kier Cline, documents the “National Hollerin’ … Read more

Seven Films to be Preserved Through Avant-Garde Masters Grants

Gregory Markopoulos’ Twice a Man (1963)

Owen Land’s “structuralist” subversions, a Ken Jacobs reckoning with silent narrative, a mythic reverie from Gregory Markopoulos, an early work from Fred Camper, and a poetic nature study from montage maestro Slavko Vorkapich will all be saved through the 2015 Avant-Garde Masters Grants awarded by The Film Foundation and the National Film Preservation Foundation. All told, seven films will be preserved and made available through the 2015 grants.

Gregory Markopoulos’ Twice a Man, starring Olympia Dukakis and Paul Klib, will be saved through a grant to Temenos, an archive dedicated to the work of Markopoulos, which will partner with the Austrian Film Museum to complete preservation of this landmark film. Often cited as Markopoulos’ masterpiece, this modern take on the Hippolytus myth was a leap forward in the creation of what he … Read more