Introducing Lost and Found Films

 

I did it! After years of having this idea in my mind, I started a new blog to talk about film preservation and review lost movies.

Wait, WHAT?

Let’s go back in time.

In the far-away year of 2018 I dug deep in Brazilian film magazines, these tell-all publications that didn’t care about spoilers, to reconstruct the plots of some sadly lost movies. I did this for the publication Única, in which I reconstructed the plots of the movies Alfred Hitchcock worked in before becoming a director, back in England. And then I did the same for my blog: I reconstructed the plot for one Holy Grail of lost films: 1919’s “The Miracle Man”. The results: a great book on Hitchcock and a very long but informative blog post, so far the one that gave me the most pride to have written.

And then I thought: what if I could do it again, and more often?

So the seed for “Lost and Found Films” was planted. In the years between the idea and the real debut of the blog, I have researched more about lost films, watched a few films that were once considered lost, and prepared for the big day. As many of you may know, I started taking part in the online version of the Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, and two great things happened: I was part of the Zoom Collegium in 2020 and the following year I won the Russell Merritt Prize for best essay writing about a forgotten film: “La Tempesta in un Cranio”, from 1921.

“Lost and Found Films” debuted this past May and is updated monthly. I already amassed a good amount of readers by advertising the blogs on social networks (do you already follow me on BlueSky?). I have a lot of great plans for this new endeavor without, of course, ever abandoning my first and main blog, this Crítica Retrô.

It all started with Lon Chaney, seven years ago. To pay a tribute to him, whose early career is comprised of mostly lost films, I made the banner above, with an image from the unfortunately lost, and much sought after, “London After Midnight”, from 1927. Maybe it will be the focus of a future article in Lost and Found Films? Keep close and we’ll see.