By Allyson Nadia Field Something Good-Negro Kiss (William Selig, 1898) In January 2017, I received an email from Dino Everett, the film archivist at the University of Southern California, with an image from an unidentified 50ft nitrate print from c.1900. Dino was struck by what appeared to be “a…
By Martin L. Johnson For historians of early and silent cinema, the specter of firstness haunts our work. For last year’s Domitor conference, the theme of “provenance” placed these concerns at the center of the conversation, even as many presenters took up the opportunity to question notions of firsts, originals,…
Madeleine Malthête-Méliès, Matthew Solomon et Anne-Marie Quévrain, Paris, 2 Décembre 2015 (Photo courtesy of Matthew Solomon) Domitorians continue to mourn the death last year of Madeleine Malthête-Méliès (née Madeleine Fontaine), who died in her sleep in Paris on July 8, 2018. Malthête-Méliès was working hard to…
La Rivista Cinematografica (Italy, 1920) The Domitor Film Journals Project has been growing since last summer. Now under the guidance of Patrick Ellis and myself, the site started as a project to update and expand Luke McKernan’s list for the Bioscope website from 2012.…
If our last post was all about staying “woke” (come on, millennials, read this blog), then this is an encouragement to dream a little more. Every year at the Giornate, long lost films pop up, unearthed from a New Zealand hayloft, a Pordenone…
To sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub, for a succession of trans- and intercontinental flights make for a poor sleeping pattern at the Giornate. For many of us it must be inevitable to spend at least a few days in a state…
The gentle notes emanating from Antonio Coppola’s pianoforte softened the harsh reality that was depicted in Febo Mari’s L’Emigrante (1915). The film couldn’t have been more different than the one it accompanied in the splendid Febo Mari double bill that graced the Teatro Verdi’s screen…
Those of us who recently joined the elated masses in movie palaces to behold the sight of a magical clown dancing, prancing, and biting his way about the silver screen might have noticed that the child-devouring jester had a few familiar tricks up his sleeve.…
Werner Nekes in Film Before Film. Reproduced from Media Magica I, directed by Werner Nekes (1986), DVD. Newer, more glamorous technologies still glimmer with mysterious and sensual ancestors. -Barbara Stafford, Devices of Wonder (2001) In a recent article published in The Moving Image, Meredith Bak…
Birmingham, England, 28–30 April 2017—A Magic Lantern Convention is first and foremost a projected affair. As an event organized around a variety of lantern-based presentations—from entertainments, to scholarly research, to combinations of the two—its arguments happen on the screen. To the traditional features of a…
Chers membres de Domitor, amis, passionnés de cinéma des premiers temps, ou simples visiteurs intéressés, Merci de visiter le nouveau site internet de Domitor, mis en ligne en ce mercredi 5 octobre 2016 lors de l’Assemblée Générale de l’association aux Giornate del Cinema Muto…
Dear Domitor members, friends, early cinema aficionados, and interested passers-by, Thank you for visiting the new Domitor site, which goes live this week on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 at the General Assembly at the Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone, where Domitor was founded…
