MORE TREASURES HONORED AT 2004 PORDENONE SILENT FILM FESTIVAL
Contact: Barbara Gibson (510-531-4521, barbarawgibson@comcast.net)
San Francisco, CA (October 4, 2004)—The 23rd Pordenone Silent Film Festival will celebrate the National Film Preservation Foundation's new three-DVD box set, More Treasures from American Film Archives, 1894-1931, with a special film screening on Sunday, October 10, in Sacile, Italy. This year marks the fourth year in a row that the internationally acclaimed festival has saluted the silent-film preservation work of American film archives and the National Film Preservation Foundation.
The 2004 line up presents three shorts and a feature from the More Treasures set, all exhibited as 35mm film prints with live music accompaniment. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910), preserved by George Eastman House, is the first surviving film adaptation of the L. Frank Baum novel and introduces to the screen Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Woodman, and other beloved characters. Inklings (1925), preserved by the Museum of Modern Art, is a brilliantly inventive cartoon by Dave Fleischer in which drawings morph into new and unexpected subjects. CV News, a newsreel story preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, documents Erich von Stroheim's filming of Greed in Death Valley during the blazing summer of 1923. The Invaders (1912), a groundbreaking Western epic preserved by the Library of Congress, uses Native American actors to tell the story of a broken treaty conflict. The program notes can be found on the festival's Web site under the series title Saving the Silents.
Released on September 7 to stellar reviews, More Treasures from American Film Archives, 1894-1931 (NTSC, Region 0, $US 79.95) showcases the astonishing range and vitality of American motion pictures during their first four decades. The nine-and-one-half-hour collection presents 50 films and six previews preserved by America's foremost silent-film archives. Distributed by Image Entertainment, the box set features a 200-page book, interactive screens, and newly recorded music and commentary. More Treasures was funded in part through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Net proceeds from sales will support further film preservation work at participating institutions. The Pordenone Festival, also known as Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, has been a long-time advocate of the project.
The National Film Preservation Foundation, the nonprofit organization created by the U.S. Congress to help save America's film heritage, is the charitable affiliate of the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress. The NFPF (www.filmpreservation.org) has provided preservation support to 100 organizations across 36 states and helped save more than 730 films.
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