Silent films recovered: These new releases are oldest in a long time

Rex Ingram's "The Arab" (1924) is among the "lost" movies recovered in Russia. (Library Of Congress)

By Peter Finn

Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, February 9, 2011

 

In a large mahogany box embellished with silk pockets and Cyrillic lettering, 10 lost pieces of America's cultural heritage recently landed in Culpeper, Va. - thanks, in a roundabout way, to the Soviet Union and a bureaucratic penchant for filing.

Alexander Hotz is a freelance multimedia journalist and public radio junkie based in New York City. Currently he teaches digital media at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Follow Alex on Twitter at @hotzington.

When filmmaker Andrew Lampard began promoting his documentary Two Summers in Kosovo last fall, he didn’t pay much attention to social media. Lampard used his personal Twitter () and Facebook () accounts to keep his friends informed, but he didn’t use any social media tools to promote the movie — something he regrets today.