Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film 1894-1941

UNSEEN CINEMA: EARLY AMERICAN AVANT-GARDE FILM 1894-1941 is the ground-breaking retrospective that explores long-forgotten American experimental films made in the United States and Europe during the formative period of cinema. Arranged into thematic programs, the digital version consists of over 140 films, newly preserved and restored in 35mm and 16mm film prints. The series postulates an innovative and often controversial view of experimental cinema as a product of avant-garde artists, of Hollywood directors, and of amateur movie-makers working collectively and as individuals at all levels of film production during the last decade of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.

Anthology Film Archives and Deutsches Filmmuseum working in collaboration with 60 of the world's leading film archive collections including British Film Institute, George Eastman House, Library of Congress, and Museum of Modern Art, among many others, prepared preservation and restorations masters of the rare art films. Many of the films have not been available since their creation over a century ago, some have never been screened in public, and almost all have been unavailable in pristine projection prints until now. The films have been seen at museums, archives, universities, and theaters around the world. Over 500 venues have featured the UNSEEN CINEMA, making it one of the largest and perhaps the most viewed film retrospectives in history.

Curated by Bruce Posner and produced by David Shepard

Made possible in part by Cineric, Inc., Eastman Kodak Company, Film Preservation Associates

"I have been obsessed in the last couple of weeks with 'Unseen Cinema,' which is astounding. Thank you a thousand times, and then another thousand." - Alexander Payne (director of 'Sideways,' 'About Schmidt,' and 'Nebraska')

"One of the major monuments of the [digital] medium." - The New York Times