Jacob Burns gives forgotten films second chance with 'Restored and Rediscovered' festival

The Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville is giving forgotten films a second chance with its first-ever "Restored and Rediscovered" Film Festival.

The festival runs from Monday, May 13 until Thursday, May 23 and aims to educate the public about film history through a selection of rare and restored classic, independent and silent films. The festival also ties the significance of the films with insights into how they were made, with panels before each screening by filmmakers and film restoration experts.

“This festival is a celebration of the work it takes to protect and preserve film that might otherwise have been lost,” said Monica Castillo, JBFC Senior Programmer and Series Curator. “Through their meticulous restoration efforts, several films we now consider classics were rescued from the brink of obscurity and brought back to life, allowing audiences to experience their magic again."

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The Film Foundation, a nonprofit film preservation organization founded by legendary director Martin Scorsese, says it estimates that half of all American films made before 1950 are lost. Castillo, program director for the film center's festival, says only about 10% of films from the silent film era before 1929 survive, which is why she feels it's important to preserve and highlight "lost" films.

The festival kicks off with Nancy Savoca's 1993 film "Household Saints" Monday. Martina Savoca-Guay, Savoca's daughter, will participate in a panel and a screening of her own documentary "The Many Miracles of Household Saints" at 5 p.m., which shows the "improbable" story of how her mother's film was made. "Household Saints" will follow at 6:30 p.m.

Other films featured in the festival include Martin Scorsese’s "Hugo", Edward Yang’s "Mahjong", Michael Powell’s "Peeping Tom", and Carol Reed’s "The Third Man".

If you go

When: Monday May 13 through Thursday, May 23.

Where: Jacob Burns Film Center, 364 Manville Rd., Pleasantville

Ticket info: Prices for tickets vary by screening, and may be purchased in advance at the box office or online (online sales include processing fees). Tickets to encore screenings are $11 for members and $16 for non-members.

Learn more by heading online to burnsfilmcenter.org or calling 914-747-5555.

Read on for a full schedule of screenings, lectures and encores.

Jacob Burns Restored and Rediscovered Film Festival schedule

Monday, May 13

• "The Many Miracles of Household Saints" (2023) at 5 p.m. Introduction by Martina Savoca-Guay, including interviews with her parents, who made the film. Tickets are $11 for members and $16 for non-members.

• "Household Saints" (1993) at 6:30 p.m. A drama about three generations of Italian-American women struggling to get by in post-World War II New York's Little Italy starring Vincent D'Onofrio, Tracey Ullman, Lili Taylor and Michael Imperioli. After the film, director Nancy Savoca, producer Rich Guay and filmmaker Martina Savoca-Guay will participate in a Q&A, followed by a reception. An encore screening will take place at 7 p.m., Tuesday, May 21. Tickets are $20 for members and $25 for non-members.

Tuesday, May 14

• "Bushman" (1971) at 4 p.m. A Nigerian student experiences clashing cultures in 1968's San Francisco and learns hard truths about society. Restored by the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and The Film Foundation. An encore screening will take place at 7 p.m., Wednesday, May 22. Tickets are $11 for members and $16 for non-members.

• "The Adventurer" (1917) and "Lady Windermere's Fan" (1925) at 7 p.m. These two legendary silent films, directed by Charlie Chaplin and Ernst Lubitsch, will be introduced by a Museum of Modern Art film curator and accompanied with live music by Makia Matsumura. Tickets are $11 for members and $16 for non-members.

Wednesday, May 15

• IndieCollect Shorts 1 ("Possum Living", "Woo Who? May Wilson", "Painting the Town") at 1:30 p.m. This screening is free for JBFC members and includes a Q&A with directors Nancy Schrieber and Amalie R. Rothschild. Tickets are $16 for non-members.

• IndieCollect Shorts 2 ("Days are Numbered", "The Way of the Wicked", "Home Movie", "A Comedy in Six Unnatural Acts") at 4:45 p.m. This screening is free for JBFC members and includes an introduction from IndieCollect Archivist Matt Hoffman. Tickets are $16 for non-members.

• IndieCollect Shorts 3 ("Possum Living", "It Happens to Us", "Painting the Town") at 7 p.m. This screening is free for JBFC members and includes a Q&A with directors Nancy Schrieber and Amalie R. Rothschild. Encore screenings of "It Happens to Us", "Woo Who? May Wilson", and "Painting the Town" will take place at 4:20 p.m. Tuesday, May 21. Tickets are $16 for non-members.

Thursday, May 16

• New York Through Her Lens series at 4 p.m. Introduction by Women’s Film Preservation Fund co-chairs Kirsten Larvick and Erika Yeomans, and Q&A with director Mirra Bank. This collection of four films by women shot in and around New York City were all restored with the help of the Women's Film Preservation fund. Films include Charlotte Moorman's "Avant Garde Festival #9" (1965), "Yudie" (1974), "Windows in the Kitchen" (1977) and "Ellis Island" (1981). Tickets are $11 for members and $16 for non-members.

• "Pinto Ben" (1915) and "The Unknown" (1927) at 7 p.m. Introduction from Anthony L'abbate, preservation manager at the George Eastman Museum and live musical accompaniment by Ben Model. Pinto Ben is a 1915 silent western short film written, directed and starring William S. Hart. "The Unknown" is a highly acclaimed silent film that is described by the JBFC as "a Freudian pile-up of repressed desires, castration anxiety, and Oedipal subtext," and follows a circus performer who is actually an impostor and fugitive from the law. Tickets are $15 for members and $20 for non-members.

Friday, May 17

• "The Runner" (1984) at 1 p.m. An independent Iranian film about "an illiterate yet resourceful" orphan living alone in an abandoned tanker, surviving abuse from adults and competing older kids. The screening includes a pre-Recorded Q&A with Actor Madjid Niroumand and was restored from the original negative in 2K by Cineric and presented in collaboration with Rialto Pictures. An encore screening will take place at 7 p.m., Monday, May 20. Tickets are $11 for members and $16 for non-members.

• "Mahjong" (1996) at 3:45 p.m. The last film by Taiwanese director Edward Yang, "Mahjong" is described as "an acerbic, sprawling tragicomedy, a poison love letter to Taipei as a rising cosmopolis of big money, big dreams, and big cons." The film was restored by the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute and presented in collaboration with Janus Films. An encore screening will take place at 4 p.m., Wednesday, May 22. Tickets ate $11 for members and $16 for non-members.

• "Rare Blue Apes of Cannibal Isle" (1974) and "Against the Grain" (2023) at 6:30 p.m. "The Rare Blue Apes of Cannibal Isle" is a trippy "kiddie" musical, shot in Malaysia by sexploitation director Donn Greer and includes singing crocodiles and monkeys, deadly and psychedelic booby traps, barren hellscapes, and a lovable duck named Mr. Quack Quack. "Against the Grain" is a feature-length documentary exploring home video studios and their efforts to recover and restore lost and forgotten genre films. This screening includes a Q&A with former JBFC projectionist Justin LaLiberty, now a producer at Vinegar Syndrome, a cult film preservation group. Tickets are $11 for members and $16 for non-members.

Saturday, May 18

• "Hugo" (2011) in 3D at 11 a.m. This animated film by Martin Scorsese, based on the graphic novel by Brian Selznick, follows Hugo, an orphan living in the walls of a Paris train station in 1931, who gets wrapped up in a mystery involving his late father's automaton invention and discovers the magic of film. This screening includes an introduction by Monica Castillo and a hands-on activity at the Media Arts Lab where viewers can draw on film strips and project them. The activity also includes a film projection demonstration by JBFC projectionists. Tickets are $15 for members, $20 for non-members and $13 for children.

• Laughter Restored: Discovering Rare Gems of the Silent Era with Ben Model at 1:15 p.m. Silent film historian, accompanist and distributor Ben Model will present a lecture about his work over the past decade uncovering, restoring and reintroducing rare films of the lesser-known luminaries of silent comedy to the public. Tickets are $11 for members and $16 for non-members.

• "Peeping Tom" (1960) at 4 p.m. A serial killer murders women after he has taken private photographs of them in lingerie and records their faces of terror as they die to create a film of his own. The film includes a Q&A with director Michael Powell's wife, Thelma Schoonmaker, about her husband and the restoration of what was once Powell's most highly criticized film. An encore screening will take place at 7 p.m., Thursday, May 23. Tickets are $11 for members and $16 for non-members.

• "The Third Man" (1949) at 7 p.m. This classic, Academy Award-nominated film starring Orson Wells and Joseph Cotton follows a pulp novelist who travels to post-war Vienna and finds himself investigating the mysterious death of a friend. This film was restored by Deluxe Restoration on behalf of Studiocanal and will include an introduction by Monica Castillo. An encore screening will be held at 4:45 p.m., Thursday, May 23. Tickets are $11 for members and $16 for non-members.

Sunday, May 19

• Preserving Moving Images of the Past Workshop at 11 a.m. This free program will be presented by archivists from NYU’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation department, which trains future professionals to manage and preserve collections of film, video, digital, and multimedia works. Participants will have the opportunity to experiment with basic film repairs.

• "The Stronger" (1976) and "Tell Me a Riddle" (1980) at 1 p.m. This screening features two films by the former blacklisted director Lee Grant, who had been ostracized from the film industry a year after her first Oscar nomination in 1951. After she was removed from the blacklist in 1964, she began to rebuild her career as an actor and director. Both films are some of the first American feature films to be written, produced and directed by women. Tickets are $11 for members and $16 for non-members.

• "Harlem on the Prairie" (1937) at 4:30 p.m. Singer Herbert Jeffries makes his movie debut as a young cowpoke who rescues a traveling medicine show battling outlaws for buried treasure. Tickets are $11 for members and $16 for non-members.

• "Death of a Bureaucrat" (1966) at 6 p.m. The negatives for this film from acclaimed Cuban director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea suffered severe damage from mold, humidity and acetate deterioration and was restored by the Academy Film Archive and the Instituto Cubano Del Arte e Industrias Cinematográficos. Tickets are $11 for members and $16 for non-members.

Monday, May 20

• "Lumumba: The Death of a Prophet" (2000) at 5 p.m. This film by Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck follows revolutionary Patrice Lumumba's brief role as the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and his subsequent assassination in 1961. This film was restored by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata. An encore screening will take place at 2 p.m., Wednesday, May 22. Tickets are $11 for members and $16 for non-members.

• "The Runner" (1984) encore screening at 7 p.m.

Tuesday, May 21

• "It Happens to Us", "Woo Who? May Wilson", and "Painting the Town" encore screenings at 4:20 p.m.

• "Household Saints" (1993) encore screening at 7 p.m.

Wednesday, May 22

• "Lumumba: The Death of a Prophet" (2000) encore screening at 2 p.m.

• "Mahjong" (1996) encore screening at 4 p.m.

• "Bushman" (1971) encore screening at 7 p.m.

Thursday, May 23

• "The Third Man" (1949) encore screening at 4:45 p.m.

• "Peeping Tom" (1960) encore screening at 7 p.m.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Films by Scorsese, Chaplin and more slated for Jacob Burns fest