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African-American film 'Bert Williams: Lime Kiln Club Field Day.' With Williams and Odessa Warren Grey.* Rare, early 20th-century African-American film among San Francisco Silent Film Festival highlights Directed by Edwin Middleton and T. Hayes Hunter, the Biograph Company's Lime Kiln Club Field Day (1913) was the film I most looked forward to at the 2015 edition of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. One hundred years old, unfinished, and destined to be scrapped and tossed into the dust bin, it rose from the ashes. Starring entertainer Bert Williams – whose film appearances have virtually disappeared, but whose legacy lives on – Lime Kiln Club Field Day has become a rare example of African-American life in the first years of the 20th century. In the introduction to the film, the audience was treated to a treasure trove of Black memorabilia: sheet music, stills, promotional material, and newspaper clippings that survive. Details of the...

Metropolitan Playhouse is currently seeking talent for the play “Icebound,” written by Owen Davis. Several roles are being cast for “Icebound,” which follows a family who, after the death of the matriarch, has to deal with the family fortune being left to a second cousin. Auditions will be held August 4 in NYC, and this is a paid gig.’’ For more details, check out the casting notice for “Icebound” here, and be sure to check out the rest of our audition listings!

Boiling Point is not a film with high production value, pretty faces or showy effects. Boiling Point is at the heart of what the future of great filmmaking is to be, which is exactly the place it has been for some time now… in the hands of passionate indie filmmakers, not held back by a lack of budget or resources. Boiling Point is an indie film, not without it’s flaws, but rich with unrefined morsels of creative talent just waiting to be polished out from within rigid exterior.

Metronome Productions, a student film company based around Edge Hill University, may not be on the average movie watchers’ map, but the drive with which they are attempting to expose their films to the public is what convinced me to have a look at the film, and ultimately to write this review.

Written by Jack Leigh, who also co-directed the film with Sam Bewick,...

On Tuesday morning, Wamg was invited to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ special press preview of John Ford’s Upstream (1927), one of 75 films recently found in the New Zealand Film Archive and repatriated to the U.S. with the cooperation of the National Film Preservation Foundation.

The 1927 silent film, that was thought lost for decades, had it’s re-premiere Wednesday night, September 1, at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Many of the VIP’s on hand included Silent Film Historians and those involved with the restoration, as well as the general public.

Having seen the film on Tuesday, I must say the transfer is absolutely beautiful. I was so impressed by the special care taken with the film’s clarity and how vibrant the tinting is on the multiple color frames throughout. The smoky special effects combined with the subtle transitions made me forget I was...