On November 22 the MoMA will present two film programs from the EYE Filmmuseum
On November 22 the MoMA will present two film programs from the EYE Filmmuseum: one on the Jean Desmet Collection and the other on early color films with piano accompaniment by Donald Sosin.
Additionally, after the color film program, the presentation of the new book Fantasia of Color in Early Cinema will take place. This publication by Amsterdam University Press and EYE is authored by Tom Gunning, Joshua Yumibe, Giovanna Fossati and Jonathon Rosen, and it contains an annotated filmography by Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi and a foreword by Martin Scorsese. Laura Lindgren and Jonathon Rosen are responsible for the amazing design. All the authors will be present at the presentation at MoMA on November 22.
A Dutch impresario who parlayed his success from carnival fairgrounds to cinemas, Jean Desmet (1875–1956) was a key figure in the movie industry of the Netherlands in the first half of the 20th century. His extensive collection of films, posters, and other artifacts, deposited at EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam, includes many rare and unique titles, and has been inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.
Prepare to be dazzled by this breathtaking display of the beauties of hand-colored cinema, from the time before Technicolor was born. These shimmering, iridescent examples of hand painting, dyeing, and stencil coloring are drawn from the collection of the EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam: early trick films and travelogues that include images of Dutch windmills silhouetted against a crimson-burnished sunset, promenading Parisians, the sprightly fountains of Versailles, and Algeria’s dance of the Ouled Naïl.