ANYEYE Fall Silent Film Series Begins Friday 9/26

The Fall Silent Film Series begin this Friday with Buster Keaton's "The General"
The General is a 1926 American silent comedy film released by United Artists. Inspired by the Great Locomotive Chase, which happened in 1862, the film stars Buster Keaton who co-directed it with Clyde Bruckman. It was adapted by Al Boasberg, Bruckman, Keaton, Paul Girard Smith (uncredited) and Charles Henry Smith (uncredited) from the memoir The Great Locomotive Chase by William Pittenger.

Because of its then-huge budget ($750,000 supplied by Metro chief Joseph Schenck) and failure to turn a significant profit, Keaton lost his independence as a filmmaker and was forced into a restrictive deal with MGM. In 1956, the film entered thepublic domain (in the USA) due to the claimant's failure to renew its copyright registration in the 28th year after publication.^[2]

The film has been reevaluated, and is now considered by critics as one of thegreatest films ever made. In 2007, The General was ranked #18 by theAmerican Film Institute on their 10th Anniversary list of the 100 best American movies of all time.^[3]

Friday September 26, 7:30 pm.

Hardie Screening Room

In the basement of the Hardie Building

23 Essex St.

Beverly, MA

A lot has happened since January. ANYEYE has acquired several Eiki projectors and several more 16mm cameras. All of the equipment is intended to support the film and performance classes at Montserrat College of Art. Unexplained curriculum decision late in the spring semester effectively killed the performance and film classes for the fall. The result of this is that there will be no classes offered in film for the rest of the academic year. As the director of ANYEYE this is a major setback in the building of our program. It remains to be seen what will happen with performance this academic year since the brilliant and uber professional Sandrine Schaeffer will now be in Chicago for the fall semester.

ANYEYE will not be offering workshops this summer but has invited several film makers to come and perhaps generate work at the facility. We are working with the Gallery Director Leonie Bradbury and her Director of Educational Outreach Maggie Cavallo to develop a set of residency program guidelines which will hopefully  commence next summer.

So, we are on a slightly slower trajectory and will be looking for ways to monetize the equipment base to help support the residency program.

Look for a revival of the Random Orphan Film program this summer. We are continuing to acquire new films and want to create and build a culture around the viewing of projected cellulose acetate.

Recent Acquisitions

Two important additions to our facility 

Arriflex -S camera and lenses.

Pageant Analyst Projector