Starting January 14th in Washington DC: The Desmet Collection at the National Gallery of Art!

“Belgian-born film impresario Jean Desmet (1875 – 1956) — carnival showman turned successful theatrical exhibitor and distributor — spurred the growth of a new urban film culture in Europe before and during World War I. Desmet’s collection of 35mm prints and related materials (including posters, handbills, correspondence, and other ephemera) is now a vast visual-historical archive preserved at the EYE Film Museum in Amsterdam. In 2011 the Desmet collection was inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World register — one of the few film collections in the world to receive this designation. In association with EYE Film Institute, the Gallery presents six programs chosen from Desmet’s holdings, each event recreating an evening’s entertainment akin to what Desmet himself might have chosen with a mixture of genres, studios, and countries of origin. Films have been transferred to DCP format and subtitled in English.”

Courtesy of Marleen Labjit and Elif Rongen of the EYE Film Institute.

http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/calendar/film-programs/desmet.html