Photo by Sally Y. Hart – April, 2016

More than 100 films from 28 countries will be featured this month at the American Film Institute’s documentary festival, including one about a former Washington teacher and local historian preserving the films of a couple who lived a century ago.

Saving Brinton will premiere in Washington, D.C. June 17th. The documentary follows Michael Zahs and his journey to restore Frank and Indiana Brinton’s films, some of the oldest moving pictures in the world. Zahs found them days after his own wedding in cardboard boxes about to be tossed out of a basement in Washington. These preserved films and Magic Lantern slides were presented by Zahs at Washington’s State Theater last year when Guinness World Records declared the theater as the oldest continuously operating cinema theater in the world.

See the trailer for Saving Brinton here.