Sensational find in the attic This lost Méliès film from 1897 is causing a stir
What looks like junk turns out to be a rare contemporary document from the early days of film: a man discovers his great-grandfather's old film reels in a box - among them, experts recognize a work that was thought to be lost.
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- A lost short film by French cinema pioneer Georges Méliès is discovered in an attic.
- In "Gugusse et l'Automate" from 1897, trick stop effects typical of Méliès are used.
- The damaged film reels were painstakingly restored by experts from a US film archive.
An inconspicuous find causes a stir in the film world: in an old wooden trunk in the attic, retired teacher Bill McFarland discovers several film reels belonging to his great-grandfather William Delisle Frisbee, a potato farmer and traveling cinema operator from Pennsylvania. After a failed attempt to sell them, McFarland takes the black-and-white films to a film archive.
Among damaged and partially glued film reels, experts came across the short film "Gugusse et l'Automate" from 1897, which had long been thought lost.
The work was made by French cinema pioneer Georges Méliès - one of the very first filmmakers, active since the beginnings of the medium in 1895. The former stage artist shaped cinema with his innovative trick effects and is considered a pioneer of fantastic film. His science fiction work "Le voyage dans la lune" from 1902 is considered a classic.
