Saving Brinton

In Michael Zahs’ junk shed in Iowa, you can literally stumble over rare silent films. With great passion and patience, he travels around generating interest in this fascinating collection of films, known as the Brinton collection. In this documentary, however, Zahs – an amiable storyteller with a long beard – is the first to downplay his efforts. "I didn’t create anything. Sometimes someone just happens to have a shed." Among the collection, fanatical film restorer Serge Bromberg discovers Georges Méliès’ film about a woman with three heads, long believed lost. He makes sure the restoration goes to the silent film Valhalla Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna.

But the star of the film is Zahs, the man who saved that film from the incinerator. He loves to show the films using a projector set up on a banana box, or on the wall of his shed – whereby the man who so cherished these films, their extraordinary screening and everyday life in remote, rural Iowa are combined in a single stunning image.