A new film festival in Oslo, Norway has come to a close, but it all started with the help of a retired Washington history teacher. OSLOVE Film Festival was held earlier this month and featured Washington County on the big screen with a showing of Saving Brinton. The documentary features local historian Michael Zahs and his efforts to preserve and share some of the world’s oldest films. The films once were shown throughout the Midwest by Frank and Indiana Brinton. This year marks a century since Frank Brinton passed away.

Zahs said seeing the documentary Saving Brinton sparked the idea for a couple from Norway to start the festival, “The couple that started it had seen Saving Brinton about two years ago in Anchorage (Alaska). And they asked if I would come to Norway and, ‘Of course I’ll come to Norway.’ But I didn’t think that it would probably happen because you get a lot of invitations the don’t follow through in the film business. But they kept talking with us, and communicating with us, and so they actually even changed the date of the film festival so I could be there.”

This was the 127th showing of Saving Brinton, and Zahs’ 99th flight for the documentary, but it was also a first for the film, “And something that I had said I always wanted to do was to show the Brinton film and films in a tent, because the Brintons often traveled with a tent. And so the 127th time we showed the film was in a tent and that was exciting, it was cool, but it was exciting.”

Next, Zahs will be working with students at the University of Iowa in a class called “Forensic Rhetoric” where students examine a form of the written or spoken word. The students will be using the Brinton Collection for the class. The documentary Saving Brinton can be viewed on multiple streaming platforms including YouTube, Amazon Prime, and Google Play.