Columbia Student Film Enters National Film Registry

Today's headline over at the Hollywood Reporter notes that PULP FICTION and MARY POPPINS made the cut of this year's 25 new entries into the National Film Registry. Each year the Library of Congress designates a new group of films for preservation as "culturally, historically, aesthetically significant.

But for me the real news was that Adam Davidson's classic student short THE LUNCH DATE, shot when he was at Columbia's film school in 1989, also made the cut. I don't know if this film has been seen much outside of film schools but it did win the Oscar for short film in 1990.

This was probably one of the first short films I saw as a grad student at NYU and it was really an instant classic. Beautifully shot in black and white at Grand Central Station, it tells a simple and nearly soundless story of a woman and a homeless man who end up on an unexpected "date". It really impressed on me the nature of visual storytelling as I was transitioning from being a writer to a filmmaker. Here it is below if you want to check it out.

A Film Archivist And The Strange Story Of THE KIDNAPPER'S FOIL

There was a fascinating article in this weekend's NY TIMES about a film archivist in UT Austin, Caroline Frick, whose been tracking down some rare, unusual films--actually the same film that was shot over and over again in small towns throughout the US in early part of the 20th century. A filmmaker/huckster named Melton Barker went from town to town selling locals on putting their kids into a film called THE KIDNAPPER'S FOIL...for a fee. He made the film over and over again hundreds of times though today, only 20 copies have survived.

This story of film history would have been interesting in and of itself. Especially as THE KIDNAPPER'S FOIL is now on the National Film Registry due to Ms. Frick's efforts. What makes this all doubly interesting is that Ms. Frick was my next door neighbor when I was growing up in Kensington, MD and I actually used to babysit her and her brother!  I had heard she worked in film preservation and, for a time, was here in NYC working for a cable channel that played old movies. Anyway, it was so cool to read this story and learn about these FOIL films, which I've never heard of before. You can actually watch some of them on a website she started called Meltonbarker.org