The First Academy "Film-to-Film" Festival

A year ago the Academy Film Archive launched an ambitious effort called "Project Film-to-Film," aimed at preserving as many films on film as possible over a two-year period. The initiative’s main goal is to take advantage of the current availability of film stock to create new prints of a diverse range of motion pictures, encompassing the whole history of the art form.

Over 390 new prints have already been created from the best available film elements, covering significant narrative features and documentaries, as well as experimental, animated and short film titles. The wide variety of titles range from "Navajo," the only film to receive Oscar nominations for both Documentary Feature and Cinematography, to "Naked Yoga," a short once presumed lost, and "Carnival of Souls," a cult favorite that has been rescued from late-night television and restored to the big screen.

This inaugural "Film-to-Film" Festival highlighted a sampling of these treasures – some already well known, others ready to be rediscovered.

September 27 at 7:30 p.m.

Samuel Goldwyn Theater

BRAZIL (1985)

Special guests Katherine Helmond and Arnon Milchan

Surrounded by both controversy and acclaim, Terry Gilliam’s film "Brazil" is set in an alternative reality "somewhere in the 20th century," where civil servant Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) fights a hopeless battle against a totalitarian state. The film earned Academy Award nominations for Original Screenplay (Gilliam, Tom Stoppard, Charles McKeown) and Art Direction (Art Direction: Norman Garwood; Set Decoration: Maggie Gray). The stellar supporting cast includes Katherine Helmond, Jim Broadbent, Robert De Niro, Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins, Charles McKeown and Michael Palin.

Original Director's Cut, 142 min., color, 35mm

September 28 at 7:30 p.m.

Linwood Dunn Theater

Of Men and Demons

ANIMATED AND LIVE ACTION SHORTS PROGRAM

This program illustrated the wide range of films preserved by the Film-to-Film initiative, including a rare short made by the Academy itself, intriguing works by noted animators and the big-screen debut of crooner Phil Harris.

OF MEN AND DEMONS

John Hubley and Faith Hubley (1969, 16mm, color, 9 min.)

Academy Award nominee: Short Subject (Cartoon)

SO THIS IS HARRIS

Mark Sandrich (1933, 35mm, black-and-white, 28 min.)

Academy Award winner: Short Subject (Comedy)

THE UNICYCLE RACE

Robert Swarthe (1966, 35mm, color, 7 min.)

RAILWAY WITH A HEART OF GOLD

Carson "Kit" Davidson (1965, 16mm, color, 15 min.)

SCREEN ACTORS

(1950, 35mm, black-and-white, 9 min.)

September 28 at 9:30 p.m.

Linwood Dunn Theater

Sonoma Sky

EXPERIMENTAL FILM PROGRAM

The boundaries of the film medium are stretched, ignored and laughed at in these experimental shorts that manipulate sight, sound, narrative and the relationship between filmmaker and spectator.

EYE MYTH

(Stan Brakhage, 1967, 35mm, color, silent 24fps, 9 seconds)

NIGHT MULCH & VERY

(Stan Brakhage, 2001, 35mm, color, silent 24fps, 6 min.)

EXPERIMENTS IN MOTION GRAPHICS

(John Whitney, 1968, 16mm, color, sound, 11min.)

MADAME MAO'S LOST LOVE LETTERS

(Tom Leeser & Diana Wilson,1983, 35mm, color, sound, 3 min.)

BABOBILICONS

(Daina Krumins, 1982, 35mm, color, sound, 16 min.)

PENCIL BOOKLINGS

(Kathy Rose, 1978, 35mm, color, sound, 14 min.)

FURIES

(Sara Petty, 1977, 35mm, color, sound, 3 min.)

SONOMA

(Sky-David, formerly known as Dennis Pies, 1977, 35mm, color, sound, 7 min.)

BACKGROUND

(Carmen D'Avino, 1973, 35mm, color, sound, 20 min.)

Academy Award nominee: Documentary Short Subject

SEPTEMBER 29 at 2 p.m.

Linwood Dunn Theater

Naked Yoga

DOC PROGRAM #1

The afternoon's first program illustrated the diverse topics of the documentaries covered by the initiative, with a short about the spiritual aspects of Hatha yoga, and the Maysles brothers' portrait of movie distributor Joseph E. Levine.

NAKED YOGA

Paul Cordsen (1974, 35mm, color, 25 min.)

Academy Award nominee: Documentary Short Subject

SHOWMAN

Albert Maysles and David Maysles (1963, 35mm, black-and-white, 52 min.)

SEPTEMBER 29 at 4 p.m.

Linwood Dunn Theater

Navajo

DOC PROGRAM #2

The afternoon's second documentary program featured two titles that use a semi-documentary approach to convey stories of World War II rumor-mongering and the cultural conflict faced by a young Navajo boy.

MR. BLABBERMOUTH!

Basil Wrangell (1942, 35mm, black-and-white, 19 min.) Academy Award nominee: Documentary Short Subject

NAVAJO

Norman Foster (1952, 35mm, black-and-white, 70 min.)

Academy Award nominee: Documentary Feature; Black-and-White Cinematography

September 29 at 7:30 p.m.

Linwood Dunn Theater

SPIDER BABY (1968)

World premiere of the Academy Film Archive's new restoration from the original negative.

Special guests Jack Hill, Quinn Redeker and Beverly Washburn

Filmed in 1964 but not released theatrically until 1968, this cult classic marked the solo directorial debut of writer-director Jack Hill. The eerie story follows three siblings suffering from a rare genetic disorder that causes them to regress to a primal state of being and act out with savage, incestuous and animalistic behavior.

35mm, black-and-white, 81 min.

September 29 at 9:30 p.m.

Linwood Dunn Theater

CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962)

World premiere of the Academy Film Archive's new restoration from the original negative.

Director Herk Harvey's only feature film was made on a tiny budget with a crew largely composed of industrial filmmakers from Lawrence, Kansas. Filled with evocative images, the film tells the story of a young woman who seemingly survives a car crash but is haunted by a ghostly figure that is somehow connected to an abandoned carnival pavilion.

35mm, black-and-white, 78 min.