U.S. Premiere (Lyrisch Nitraat). The very elements that gave nitrate-the film stock used until the 1950s-its tragically limited lifespan also gave it an uncanny luminescence; color nitrate (and it was the rare silent film that was not tinted and toned) has a quality irreproducible elsewhere. Lyrical Nitrate, a compilation of film fragments dating from 1905-1915, is more than a paean to the rich colors unique to nitrate (though it certainly is that): this is an emotional approach to film history, an investigation of mood. In a period often associated with "slapstick and honky-tonk," director Peter Delpeut finds "the melodrama, the romance, the lyricism..." and offers this thematic frame of reference: "a triangle: Cinema-Love-Death."* Delpeut's obvious pleasure in the early filmmakers' mastery of mise-en-scène, color and lighting, acting and gesticulation is infectious, at once intimate and inviting: like the best of film historians, he asks us to use this old film material anew. The soundtrack is taken from old recordings, ranging from Caruso to "the thin but insistent sounds of a glass harmonica." The fragments include films both fiction and documentary, European and American, from a collection being preserved by the Nederlands Filmmuseum. *Quotations are from director's notes