A cinema enthusiast’s delight, Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016; 120 min) pieces together the bizarre true story of a collection of some 500 films, dating from 1910s–1920s, which were lost for over 50 years until being discovered buried in a sub-arctic swimming pool deep in the Yukon Territory. Using these permafrost protected, rare silent films and newsreels, archival footage, interviews and historical photographs to tell the story, this documentary depicts a unique history of a Canadian gold rush town by chronicling the life cycle of a singular film collection through its exile, burial, rediscovery, and salvation – and through that collection, how a First Nation hunting camp was transformed and displaced.
Nominee for many awards including winning the International Documentary Association and the Critics Choice Documentary Awards.
Co-presented by VMFA and the 25th Annual James River Film Festival, a volunteer-run nonprofit organization dedicated to the art of film and film as art: jamesriverfilm.org