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Useful Prophecies: An Archival Compilation (2019)

2019 · Ephemeral film · 65 min

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Synopsis

Useful Prophecies, an archival compilation made for the opening night of Punto De Vista Festival (Pamplona/Iruñea), March 11, 2019. While the distance between cinema and truth is often impossible to bridge, some films reveal more than we might think any films could. Such is the case with the long-neglected body of useful cinema — films produced because they had jobs to do, like sponsored, educational, and industrial films — and home movies, sometimes revelatory works that seem to spring from the unconscious. Built from the collections of Prelinger Archives, one of the world’s largest collections of nonfiction films and home movies, this program builds a prophetic portrait of futures to come as proposed by filmmakers who let these visions speak through them. (35mm, 16mm and 8mm scanned to digital video, 65 min.) Film sequences are drawn from the following titles: THE MIDDLETON FAMILY AT THE NEW YORK WORLD’S FAIR (Robert R. Snody for Westinghouse Electric Company, 1939) EARLY SETTLERS OF NEW ENGLAND (SALEM 1626-1629) (Encyclopaedia Britannica Films, 1940) GET GOING (Jam Handy Organization for Chevrolet Motor Company, 1936) MASTER HANDS (Jam Handy Organization for Chevrolet Motor Company, 1936) VALLEY TOWN (Educational Film Institute, New York University and Documentary Film Productions for Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, 1940) LET'S GO AMERICA: YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW (National Association of Manufacturers and National Industrial Council, 1936) HEALTH-O-GRAMS (Carlyle Ellis,…

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Details

Running time
65 minutes
Language
English
Collection
Prelinger Archives

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