Passes for the Festival of Film Conservation at the George Eastman Museum now on sale—single tickets on sale June 2
Rochester, N.Y., May 6, 2022—The George Eastman Museum will present the 6th Nitrate Picture Show from June 2 to 5, 2022, at the Dryden Theatre in Rochester, NY. The Nitrate Picture Show, the world’s only festival of film conservation, returns after a two-year hiatus for the sixth edition with a new lineup of nitrate prints on screen, the Nitrate Touch workshop, and two concerts on Thursday, June 2: the first on the George Eastman’s grand piano and the second on the Eastman’s Aeolian pipe organ. Festival passes for all screenings and other related programming are available for purchase through the museum’s website at eastman.org/nps.
The Nitrate Picture Show is the one film festival that could never go online under any circumstances, as it is dedicated to screening original 35mm nitrate prints in a movie theater. After a two-year interval caused by COVID, the festival is back. It will continue the tradition of exhibiting archival films on flammable stock from international archives—including the Eastman Museum’s own collection—as well as presenting lectures and other opportunities to experience the art and science of film preservation, from print conservation to archival projection. The latest print shown at the festival so far was from 1958, the earliest one—from 1913. This year’s program will feature another great selection of nitrate prints from around the world (ten archives, covering three continents), from silent cinema to Technicolor, in a cinematic experience that can’t be duplicated anywhere else.
Hundreds of people from more than 20 different countries have made the trip to Rochester to indulge in the nitrate experience at the George Eastman Museum. The official program, which is kept secret until the first day of the festival, will be announced at 10 a.m. on Thursday, June 2. A festival favorite, Portrait of Jennie (William Dieterle, US 1948), will begin the festivities at 7:30 p.m. that same evening. David O. Selznick’s personal print of this romantic fantasy, starring Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, and Lillian Gish, offers a unique combination of black-and-white film, tinting, toning, three-strip Technicolor, and the Magnascope widescreen.
Festival passes for the Nitrate Picture Show range in price from $125 to $250, and include admission to the festival’s entire film program of twelve nitrate screenings.
TICKET INFORMATION
Festival Passes: June 2–5, 2022
Passes include admission to all screenings and lectures, plus complimentary entrance to the George Eastman Museum June 2–5, 2022. Patrons receive a special gift and recognition on-site and in print.
- Patron Pass: $250
- Festival Pass: $175
- Eastman Museum Member: $125
- Student: $125
About the George Eastman Museum Nitrate Collection
The museum holds one of the country’s largest collections of nitrate prints, preserved at the Louis B. Mayer Conservation Center, a state-of-the-art facility located 12 miles southwest of Rochester. The George Eastman Museum is also a member of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF), the world’s leading group in the field of film conservation and preservation, and the museum’s collection of over 28,000 titles covers the entire history of cinema, from Edison and the Lumière brothers to contemporary works by Peter Greenaway and Tacita Dean.