I returned Sunday from five days in Columbia, South Carolina, attending the 5th Orphans Film Symposium, a jam-packed series of film screenings, paper presentations, and catered snack breaks. I’d never been before, and I’m glad I made it this time, as the conference will be moving with its organizer to New York City for the next installment, so the rumors have it.
The theme of this year’s symposium was “Science, Industry, and Education,” which meant that we got to see everything from slow-motion films on the growth of flowers to industrial films about the manufacture of Chevrolets circa 1938. We watched a film sponsored by gas utility called “Let’s Make a Sandwich!” and a short starring two hand puppets warning kids about the dangers of intestinal parasites. Some films were part of presentations by professors and grad students from around the world, some were accompanied by live musicians, and others were not themselves oprhan films, but new films constructed wholly or partially out of orphan footage, unknown silent films and public domain shorts from the earliest days of film. I watched, by my count, about 40 films, which, after the previous week, makes for a busy March. The conference was a wonderful event, and I met a lot of new people while re-connecting with others in the field I’d met at previous events. Two events down and three to go in my busy spring; next up, I head to L.A. in about two weeks.
