Ainsworth holds 25th film fest

AINSWORTH — Guests came to the Ainsworth Opera House from far and wide for a film festival over the weekend. The 25th year of the event showing only pre-1908 media featured audio recordings likely not heard since the 1890s, which were converted to a usable digital format days prior.

The works come from the Brinton collection, a set of moving pictures and magic lantern slides found by Mike Zahs — who was the night’s master of ceremonies — in a basement in Ainsworth in the early ‘80s. The collection also included a set of wax cylinders with recordings not heard by audiences until this year’s event.

“This is a sound recording, I never wanted to touch a needle to it, because if you think about what happens to wax … a needle would probably destroy it,” Zahs said. “We worked with a man in Burbank, California, and he said he could get the sound off of these. So you will be the first … to hear those sounds tonight.”

While the show spotlights a depth of historical items that are fascinating in their own right, many guests said Zahs himself was the key point of appeal.

“His narration and his background information that he gives you, he just knows so much,” said Diana Langreck, an audience member from Saint Lucas, Iowa, who has attended the show with her now-husband since its second year. “He’s just a fascinating speaker. Every year that we come, you think that we’ve seen the whole program, but it’s always different, we learn so much each time.”

Mary Owen, the daughter of Iowan actress Donna Reed — of “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “The Donna Reed Show” — is naturally an enthusiast of film history. She said the yearly film festivals exposed her to a chapter of the medium’s past she hadn’t explored before.

“Prior to this, I’d never seen magic lanterns slides, anything like that,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of film classes and no one ever talks about this … it’s such a treat.”

For his part, Zahs said he was satisfied with how the show went.

“The audience was wonderful, they were very, very responsive,” he said. “If you have a good audience, it’s contagious.”

Though the show featured the old sound recordings, Zahs said they were likely meant to accompany magic lantern slides also in the Brinton collection. While he didn’t have time to match up the items in the days between receiving the digitized works and sharing them at the festival, he said he hoped to have them ready by next year’s event.

“Next year, because I have the sound, now I have the magic lantern slides and the music to go with them,” he said. “I’ve never been able to do that.”

Zahs said he was proud of the now-25-year-old show.

“This couldn’t be done any place else in the world,” he said. “And the Brintons appeared here in the opera house, so it seems like the right place to do it … the whole collection will be online at some point, but that takes a long time.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com