Silent movies in the Presidential Library’s Cinema Club

December 20, 2012 at 15.00 will take place a regular meeting of the Presidential Library Cinema Club. There will be demonstrated an American film of the "silent era", which was considered lost.

More than half of American films made in the era of the birth of cinema – “the great silent," from 1894 to 1929, are now considered lost. The film used for their recording, contained silver nitrate and deteriorated if not properly stored.

In the Soviet Union, many pictures were placed in special repositories, which allowed not only to save them, but to digitize, and even return to their historic homeland. Thus, 10 silent films that were considered irretrievably lost, were stored in Gosfilmfond. Digital copies of these pictures in 2011 were given by the Presidential Library to the Library of Congress.

Among the returned masterpieces of American cinema was the film "Circus Days” of 1923 starring child actor of the 1920s, Jackie Kugan. The film is about a boy who ran away from his uncle to join the circus. This film will be shown at the cinema club meeting.

The viewing and discussion of the movie will be attended by U.S. Consul General Bruce Turner, Director General of the Presidential Library Alexander Vershinin, Director of the State Film Fund of Russia Nikolai Borodachev, film critics, filmmakers and journalists. Traditionally, they will be joined by the Internet audience – the meeting will be broadcast live on the website of the Presidential Library.

Meetings of the cinema club of the Presidential Library became traditional. In the framework of the club there have been demonstrated the films provided by "Lennauchfilm" - a partner of the project. In future it is planned to demonstrate a unique newsreel given over to the Presidential Library by the Central Film and Photo Archives and by Gosfilmfond. Currently, the library has about 100 items of such materials.