The Brinton legacy continues with another film festival in the books.

Local historian Mike Zahs hosted the 24th annual Brinton Film Festival Friday and Saturday night at the Ainsworth Opera House Community Center. The two-night festival featured many early silent films from the Brinton collection with Zahs providing commentary throughout. Moviegoers enjoyed some ice cream provided by the Ainsworth Dairy Mart while watching the films. Many other pieces of history were on display for people to see including a new addition, a double dissolving magic lantern. Zahs says that very few people have ever seen or heard of this item and explains how it works, “They would project an image on the screen and then project another image over that and pull the first image away and it gave the illusion of motion.”

Zahs later explained that this was one of the earliest forms of entertainment and that some lantern slides predated the Civil War. He hopes to have the double dissolving magic lantern ready to go for next year’s festival as well as some of the original music that accompanied some of the films.