BEST OF THE ORPHAN FILM SYMPOSIUM (FIRST EDITION)

Curator Dan Streible and filmmaker Alan Berliner

The term “orphan film” is used by archivists to describe footage with unknown origins – from home movies to obscure newsreels to work that defies categorizing. Dan Streible has been showcasing this work for several years at the Orphan Film Symposium, held at the University of South Carolina. Now he brings 90 minutes of this work to New York City for a rare presentation. The material ranges from newly restored 1920s footage of New York City to a Martin Luther King voting rights speech. You may never have the chance to see this footage again.

Streible will be joined by acclaimed filmmaker Alan Berliner who incorporates orphans into docs such as NOBODY’S BUSINESS and his latest WIDE AWAKE. Berliner will screen one of his own Orphan-related shorts. The program will also include a short by Bill Morrison, creator of DECASIA. This will be an unforgettable film-going experience. 

About Dan Streible (taken from the NYU website): cinema.tisch.nyu.edu/
Dan Streible joined the NYU Cinema Studies faculty as associate professor in 2006.  He teaches courses in film history, archiving, curating, and documentary and serves as associate director of the MIAP program.  His publications include the books Fight Pictures:  A History of Boxing and Early Cinema (U of California Press, 2008) and Emile de Antonio:  A Reader (2000, co-edited with Douglas Kellner).  Streible has published research on the history of movie exhibition, early cinema, amateur filmmaking, nontheatrical film, and moving image preservation, in anthologies and in journals such as Cinema Journal, Film History, and The Velvet Light Trap.  He serves as a founding member of the editorial boards of The Moving Image and the Journal of E-Media Studies.  Since 1999, he has organized the biannual Orphan Film Symposium, bringing together archivists, academics and artists to save, screen and study neglected artifacts from the history of film and television.  Streible was elected to the Board of Directors of the Association of Moving Image Archivists (2004-06) and appointed to the National Film Preservation Board (2005-09).

Visit the Orphan Film Symposium Website: www.nyu.edu/orphanfilm

About Alan Berliner:
Alan Berliner’s uncanny ability to combine experimental cinema, artistic purpose, and popular appeal in compelling film essays has made him one of America’s most acclaimed independent filmmakers. The New York Times has described Berliner’s work as “powerful, compelling and bittersweet… full of juicy conflict and contradiction, innovative in their cinematic technique, unpredictable in their structures… Alan Berliner illustrates the power of fine art to transform life.”

Visit Alan Berliner’s website: www.alanberliner.com/

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