Museum to screen silent films

Focus will be on legacy of movies made in this region Cuddebackville — Over the weekend of Sept. 28 and 29, The Neversink Valley Area Museum will present a symposium focusing on the silent films made in this region and the legacy they have left us. This event will include lectures and screenings of silent short films made both in the early 1900s and as recently as this year. It will be held under a tent on the lawn behind the museum’s main building, On Friday, Sept. 28, at 8 p.m, the museum will hold a screening of silent films made in this region or made by those who worked here. These film pioneers include D.W. Griffith, Mack Sennett, Mabel Normand, Lillian and Dorothy Gish, and Anita Loos., Eileen White a film director, who teaches film theory and history at Queensborough Community College will speak about the films and their creators. “The silent filmmakers were true pioneers as they were doing things that had never been done before. They paved the way for all filmmakers and we all owe them for developing the grammar of narrative film as well as all the great entertainment they have given us,” said White. On Saturday, Sept. 29 at 4 p.m., Edwin Thanhouser, grandson of the founders of the Thanhouser Film Company of New Rochelle, will speak about the history of that company, which filmed “The Forest Rose” in Cuddebackville in 1912. Thanhouser, a film preservationist, will screen films made by his grandfather’s company. Immediately following this presentation will be a screening of submissions to the museum’s first annual silent short film competition. To help celebrate its 40 anniversary as an institution promoting the history of its western Orange County region, the museum asked film makers to submit short movies without any synchronized sound. “