Eye Cinema Museum
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Footage of a parade in New Orleans found in the Netherlands was included in the US National Film Registry. Made in 1898 Shrove Tuesday Carnival it is the oldest film of the Carnival celebration and was found this year in the collection of the Eye Cinema Museum.
In the film, just under two minutes long, a colorful procession with several floats moves through the streets of New Orleans. The footage was found when the Louisiana State Museum was looking for its oldest record for a folk festival exhibit.
It turned out to be a 68mm film from one of Eye’s oldest collections, an American newsreel archive. It was already preserved in 1998, but then no one realized how unique the statue was. Eye hopes that even more special images will be discovered as the other 200 or so films in this archive are digitised.
The Mardi Grass Carnival shows how exuberant the already celebrated party was at the time:
The film is included in the National Film Registry because the American Library of Congress considers registrations special. Each year, 25 films are selected for that list that are of great “cultural, historical or aesthetic importance to the national film heritage”.
Operation the list of 850 titles includes Hollywood classics such as Gone With the Wind, The sound of music in The matrixbut also an informative film like The history of menstruation (1946), an amateur film of a visit to Disneyland and the Zapruder film of the assassination of President Kennedy. There are only nine pre-1900 titles on the list.
If a film is selected for the registry, the Library of Congress, one of the US cultural porters, promises to make an effort to preserve it, such as including a copy in its collection, helping other archives change the title. or to help with the restorations.
Romcoms, animation and blaxploitation
At the same time as Shrove Tuesday Carnival A further 24 titles were selected, such as the romantic comedy When Harry met SallyHorror movie CarrieDisney animation The little Mermaid, blaxploitationfilm Super fly and the first in the successful Marvel film series, Iron man. These are all titles that have been influential in their genre, explains Librarian of Congress Carola Hayden.
There were 6858 nominations submitted by the public this year. Films must be at least ten years old to be eligible.
