Press Release
November 9 2018
America ReFramed: 'Saving Brinton' | Press Kit
Overview
“Endearing. Affectionate. Zealots are plentiful in the film history world, but ones as amiable as Zahs are as rare as the movies he doggedly preserved.” — Kenneth Turan, The LA Los Angeles Times
New York, N.Y. — November 9, 2018 — In Saving Brinton, a collector discovers a cache of century-old showreels of the man who brought moving pictures to the Midwest and begins a journey to save these irreplaceable cinematic treasures from turning to dust.
Saving Brinton, a film by Tommy Haines, John Richard and Andrew Sherburne, tells the story of history teacher Mike Zahs, who uncovers a rare collection of films owned by one of America's first motion picture impresarios, William Franklin Brinton. Among the treasures: rare footage of President Teddy Roosevelt, the first moving images from Burma, and a lost relic from magical effects godfather Georges Méliés. Fascinated by projection and the illusion of motion, Brinton brought the moving pictures to America's Heartland.
Saving Brinton will make its U.S. television premiere on Tuesday, January 1, 2019 at 8 p.m. (7p.m.CT / 9p.m.PST) on WORLD Channel and PBS as part of the new season of America ReFramed. It will also make its streaming debut on worldchannel.organd all station-branded PBS platforms including PBS.org,and on PBS apps for iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Chromecast.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, The Brinton Entertainment Co. of Washington, Iowa, would travel throughout the Midwest bringing films, magic lantern slides and other forms of entertainment to populations who, in many cases, had never before seen such sights.
Zahs sets out on a journey to restore and present the showreels to today’s audiences—taking him to the Library of Congress, Paris and back for a big screen extravaganza in the same small-town movie theater where Brinton first showed his movies. In this portrait of an unlikely Midwestern folk hero, Saving Brinton offers a meditation on the legacy of illusionist Frank Brinton, as well as the magic of living history.
Credits
Directed by Tommy Haines and Andrew Sherburne
Produced by Andrew Sherburne
Cinematography by John Richard
Edited by Tommy Haines and John Richard