Sunday, July 29, Session I, 1-3PM

Seth Goldman introduces films by D.W.Griffith shot in Cuddebackville.

The Haunted Castle (1896)

Frankenstein (1910)

Sunday, July 29, Session II, 4-6PM

Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde (1912)

The Midnight Girl (1925)

Mon., July 30, Session III, Matinee, 12-2 PM, Session IV, Evening, 7-9PM

Introductions by Gretchen Weerheim

Mon., July 30, Session III, 12-2PM:

The Enchanted Drawing (1900)

Delivering Newspapers (1903)

Fantasmagorie (1908)

Little Nemo (1911)

Gertie the Dinosaur (1914)

A Boy and His Elephant (1913)

Our Gang Short (1920s)

Felix the Cat (1920s)

Mon., Session IV, 7-9PM

A Trip to the Moon (1902)

The Bat (1926)

Piano music accompaniment

Where: A.W. Buckbee Center, 2 Colonial Ave., Warwick, NY

For more information, call: (845)781-3729 Email: whs@warwick.net" href="mailto:whs@warwick.net">whs@warwick.net

Visit: historicwarwickny.blogspot.com

Visit: www.neversinkmuseum.org, (845)754-8870

All donations are fully tax-deductible under IRS rule 501 (c )(3)

The Neversink Valley Museum of History and Innovation and its Institute for Early Film Studies (26 Hoag Road, Cuddebackville, NY 12729) celebrates the contributions of such Hollywood legends as D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Mack Sennett, Florence Lawrence amongst others, who came to Orange County in the early years of the 20th Century to create films. Seth Goldman is the Executive Director of both the museum and institute, and Gretchen Weerheim is the museum educator and assistant director of the institute.

D.W. Griffith shot seventeen films in Cuddebackville: “I discovered Cuddebackville, the most beautiful, altogether the loveliest spot in America…there is a quality about the light there, particularly a twilight that I have never found elsewhere; it is transcendently illuminative for moving pictures.” A number of early motion picture companies and pioneers came to Cuddebackville to take advantage of the scenery and light, including the aforementioned and Cecil B. deMille, the Thanhouser Company and Pathe Freres and notable stars of the era Mabel Normand, James Kirkwood, James Young Deer and others.

The festival is also in homage to Warwick’s own cinema palace, the Oakland Theatre, which served the community as a location for vaudeville, opera, music, and movies from the silent era until the 1970s. “For many, the Oakland Theatre was the site of both their first movie and their first date; I, for one, savior memories of B horror movies starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee that I saw during the last years of the Theatre’s existence.

Recently, a World War I era poster came to light advertizing a concert for the “Permanent Blind Relief War Fund For Soldiers and Sailors at the Oakland Theatre”, which exemplifies the integral civic role these early opera houses and cinema palaces played in communities like Warwick and others in addition to providing a public space for a shared movie experience, a seemingly rarer occasion these days.

We want to contribute to bringing a little bit more of that community experience back from the past at the A.W. Buckbee Center,” said Dr. Robert Schmick, Executive Director of the Historical Society.