Join us for Believers!, the second installment of the live-event film series presented by Cinema Ephemera.

Rich Remsberg and Shawn Rosenheim have curated an evening of forgotten and discarded films, including Mormon standup comedy, government puppet shows, craptastic Bicentennial celebrations, and more!

Drawing on his 26 years’ experience as an archival researcher for documentary films, Remsberg has amassed a collection of about 40,000 obscure government films, home movies, thrift store finds, and other ephemeral films. Together with Rosenheim, a film professor at Williams College, the pair have created a tightly-curated evening of 20 pieces.

“After our first show, The Human Machine, was met with so much enthusiasm, we decided to make this an annual event, with a new program every year,” said Remsberg. This year’s lineup is organized around the theme of “Believers.”

“Some of the beliefs are recognizable: religion, patriotism, capitalism,” says Rosenheim. “Others less obvious. Some of the clips are painfully funny, some surprisingly beautiful.”

“This is an accidental chronicle of 20th century America,” adds Rosenheim, speaking of their collection culled from government archives, flea markets, dumpsters, and the basements of old hoarders. “This is a world both very familiar and very strange.”

Travel with us through the old, weird America. This is a celebration of the ordinary and the forgotten. Some of it is funny. Some is disturbing. Much of it is unbelievably beautiful – a revelation of our world in all its poverty and extravagance.

“Breaking open the original context of these films allow us to see the gems among the pot shards,” said Remsberg. “You’ll never look at the 20th Century in the same way again.”

Who We Are

Rich Remsberg is an Emmy Award-winning and Oscar-nominated archival producer, consulting with such directors as Ron Howard, Ben Stiller, and Lawrence Kasdan for documentary films on Netflix, HBO, Disney+, and PBS.

Shawn Rosenheim teaches film, nonfiction audio, and literature at Williams College, where he co-founded the Documentary Today conference. He has consulted on Errol Morris’ documentaries, and his work includes interviews at Mass MoCA and Williams College with Werner Herzog, Ken Burns, and Frederick Wiseman, among others. He is the director of Biosphere 2.