Previously, MMC! had declared its great appreciation for MUBI’s latest podcast season entitled “Only in Theatres.” MUBI’s latest episode focuses on The George Eastman House‘s Dryden Theatre and its Nitrate Picture Show, an annual film festival devoted to exclusively showing films on very delicate, highly combustible nitrate prints. Listening to the extreme efforts taken by The George Eastman House to safely store and screen these films, I recalled this old safety film from the Huntley Film Archives that I first saw at a showing of Bill Morrison’s Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016) and that demonstrates the shockingly dangerous nature of nitrate film stock. Terrifying and edifying!
In addition to recalling my missed opportunity and retroactive desire to have pursued a career in film restoration and archiving after film school, I am now obsessed with attending the 2023 Nitrate Film Festival and being dazzled by the shimmering wonder of nitrate’s threatening beauty!
Make Mine Criterion! 