Spanish film made by mystery female director discovered during lockdown

source

Spanish film made by mystery female director discovered during lock-down

This article from last month once again serves as a reminder that there are still many lost or misattributed films from the early years of cinema just waiting to be discovered - and in this particular case not only examples from the usual English-speaking sources of Hollywood or British productions.

The film in this instance is an early example of a tourism documentary featuring as it does fascinating footage of the Spanish Balearic island of Mallorca, still famous today as a holiday hot-spot.  Originally assumed to be a 1926 silent film directed by a man, this 8-minute "æsthetic documentary" - simply titled Mallorca - had been gathering dust on the shelves of the Filmoteca Española's archives for the best part of 40 years until lock-down gave archivists the opportunity to review and re-evaluate it.

source

The result is one of those remarkable rediscoveries that often come with the fresh re-examining of a film that has been left in storage, often wrongly-labelled, for a prolonged period of time.  Far from being a minor piece of 1920s local tourism footage by a male director it has now more or less been identified as an early 1930s example complete with soundtrack and by female director Maria Forteza (although how they came to miss that on the credits is anyone's guess) - making it possibly the first sound picture directed by a woman in Spain.

source

Although it sounds like there is still some work to be done to definitively date and ascribe this short film it is nevertheless a welcome find and I am pleased to see the specialists at the Filmoteca Española finally taking a proper interest in it - thanks in part to lock-down of all things!  It's importance to the history of Spanish cinema and women in film generally is obvious and I'm glad to see its rediscovery is prompting discussion about the importance of keeping - and more importantly regularly checking - a film archive.  Unfortunately the entire film is no longer available to view on their website but there are snippets on YouTube as part of Spanish news coverage (habla Español?) here and here.  Once again this find gives hope for the future of other early films presumed lost and with luck this won't be the last one to be rediscovered as a result of the coronavirus lock-down.

Vintage Chicago film found at estate sale shows 1940s-era city

Vintage Chicago Film Found at Estate Sale Shows 1940s-era City

The subject of this post sounds like something my aunt and uncle would find during their numerous trawls of estate sales, or a treasure we could only dream of unearthing in the far rarer house clearances that occur with much less frequency in Britain.

It's a constant source of amazement to me that films such as this can turn up in the most unlikeliest of places decades after they were shot, capturing the attention of people - social historians, nostalgists, you, me - that the makers (and those who appeared on the screen) could never have even imagined.  But they do, as this latest example so amply demonstrates, and I for one am continually grateful for the fact.  How many historical gems have lain - and continue to lay - forgotten and undiscovered in the corner of a dusty archive, or nearly been thrown away (or worse, actually thrown away), all because of a vague/wrong label?

This could have been the case here (and likely would have been, had it occurred in this country) had the canister containing the film not been snapped up by a curious Chicagoan.  It is perhaps not surprising that the new owner showed such an interest in it since, in one of those serendipitous incidents that sometimes occur, the chap is a young film & video technician.  I'll bet even he never expected to uncover an amazing portal to Chicago 70 years ago, though, and neither did anybody else judging by the negligible amount of money he ended up paying for it!

The contents have proved to be of far greater historical value, however, containing as they do over thirty minutes' footage of mid-Forties Chicago - everywhere from the usual tourist haunts to the less-visited working districts.  It is a wonderful time capsule of what still remains "a city of beauty, strength and power" and a glorious glimpse of a time past; so unusual that even the Chicago Film Archives and the Chicago Board of Education (for whom the original film was made) are having trouble finding a record of it.

Regardless of whether the reasons become known as to why this film was shot and how it stayed undiscovered for so, it is splendid to see it again in all its glory and to know that it will be appreciated as a snapshot of history.  Once again, it makes you wonder just what else is out there waiting to be found!

Historic footage shows Bermuda at dawn of tourism age

Historic footage shows Bermuda at dawn of tourism age

It is amazing how the Internet can shrink the world to such an extent that a humble little vintage blogger in Great Britain can stumble across a news item from Bermuda, of all places.  That is what has happened, though, with this article from the Bernews website which has somehow managed to come within my purview.

And it's just the kind of thing I like for this blog, containing as it does film shot in the 1920s of Bermuda when the island was beginning to undergo a sea change from a simple British Company colony settlement into a tourism hot spot.  As such it contains not only a myriad of period detail, with well-heeled Americans, Canadians and Britishers holidaying on the island but also the occasional glimpse of an already fast-disappearing colonial way of life.  It's a fascinating snapshot of Twenties travel to a tourist location we now think of as quite "usual" and is thoroughly deserving of a wider audience.

Indeed, the entire Novia Scotia Archives look like a treasure-trove of 1920s and '30s delightfulness, which I shall look forward to viewing in more detail.  And all thanks to a Bermudan website I happened to chance across.  Splendid tool, the Internet, eh?