An exploration of the site of the first purpose-built modern film studio in the US (American Vitagraph Company) which operated from 1907 through the silent era, was repurposed into a yeshiva school for girls in the early 1980s, and rebuilt in 2000s for residential use with the original 70-foot smokestack still intact. The film includes interviews with film historians and descendants of the studio founders; re-photographed nitrate fragments of films that were produced at the Brooklyn studios over 100 years ago; and original footage shot inside the yeshiva school and of the building during and after demolition. The film explores both profound resistances and persistent echoes of national and local cultural histories, the archeology of the American film industry, local neighborhood demographics, gentrification, and politics.
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An exploration of the site of the first purpose-built modern film studio in the US (American Vitagraph Company) which operated from 1907 through the silent era, was repurposed into a yeshiva school for girls in the early 1980s, and rebuilt in 2000s for residential use with the original 70-foot smokestack still intact. The film includes interviews with film historians and descendants of the studio founders; re-photographed nitrate fragments of films that were produced at the Brooklyn studios over 100 years ago; and original footage shot inside the yeshiva school and of the building during and after demolition. The film explores both profound resistances and persistent echoes of national and local cultural histories, the archeology of the American film industry, local neighborhood demographics, gentrification, and politics.
Melissa Friedling
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