First Light: The Birth of Cinema 1895-1901
Nov 16, 2011
(Various directors, various years, 16mm, 75 min)
Co-Presented by The Sprocket Society
Kinetoscope Peepshows introduced the world to moving pictures but it was when they could be projected that these new “movies” changed the world. This special program features selections of these very first films, presented with live narration. Films include releases by the Lumière brothers, Thomas Edison, American Mutoscope, Georges Méliès and James Williamson, plus a very rare showing of films by Max Skladanowsky, whose Berlin screenings actually preceded the Lumieres’. Also shown will be a documentary about the paper print collection of the Library of Congress, which preserved thousands of films made between 1894 and 1912.