The true history of a collection of some 500 films dating from 1910s to 1920s, which were lost for over 50 years until being discovered buried in a sub-arctic swimming pool deep in the Yukon Territory, in Dawson City, located about 350 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

Dawson City: Frozen Time

This documentary focuses on the artistry of director Bill Morrison, who leverages decaying film stock from years past to tell new stories that are relevant to today's audiences. The decaying film lends brilliant visuals which add to Morrison's concept of storytelling.

Cinema of Decay: The Films of Bill Morrison

The film The Unchanging Sea (2018) was inspired by the discovery of a decaying print of DW Griffith's The Unchanging Sea (1910) in the nitrate vaults of the Library of Congress. Taking this ancient title as its point of departure, a new narrative was re-assembled from a variety of similarly ancient films about going off to, and returning from, the Sea. The characters in these old films appear to be emerging from the roiling oceans of Time, having floated like messages in bottles for over one hundred years, and now having washed up on our shores to tell us their stories.

The Unchanging Sea

The film depicts the Lumière Brothers discussing and examining their Cinématographe machine. This film has traveled through time since 1925, moving between different conservation sites before finally being stored in the Moving Image Research Collections of the University of South Carolina. Every degradation of the image is the result of a natural decomposition, and the filmmaker presents the material sans alteration.

Cinematograph

COPA DEL REY last 16 2nd leg Real Sociedad vs Real Betis Balompié

Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Iceland, July 9, 2016. The surprising discovery of a canister —containing four reels of The Village Detective (Деревенский детектив), a 1969 Soviet film—, caught in the nets of an Icelandic trawler, is the first step in a fascinating journey through the artistic life of film and stage actor Mikhail Ivanovich Zharov (1899-1981), icon and star of an entire era of Russian cinema.

The Village Detective: A Song Cycle

The Ring

Frequent Kronos collaborator Bill Morrison uses rare, early-20th century news footage to uncover ways that narratives about race have been used in the U.S. to divide people and maintain power.

Buried News

Wild Girl

A woman attends a party where she is observed by and finally meets a mysterious guest.

Her Violet Kiss

Bill Morrison’s experimental short features decayed film reels from the lost, German silent film Pawns of Passion (1928).

let me come in

Chicago, 2018. A man is killed by police on the street. Through a composite montage of images from surveillance and security footage as well as police body-cams, Incident recreates the event and its consequences, featuring vain justifications, altercations and attempts to avoid blame. Bill Morrison delivers a chilling political investigation in search of the truth.