Happy Home Movie Day!
Saturday, October 21st is the “official” HMD date for 2023, but like last year we welcome events throughout October and beyond – any day can be Home Movie Day! As many events have shifted back to being in-person, we’ve implemented a new calendar and submission form, all of which can be found at our About Home Movie Day page, along with lots of info about the history of global Home Movie Day and how to host your own. See you over there, and at the movies!
“As the Earth Turns” (Richard Lyford, 1938, 46 minutes). Live screening on Zoom with introduction and Q&A with producer and composer Ed Hartman and presentation on the life and films of Richard Lyford.
In 1937, in Seattle, twenty-year-old budding filmmaker Richard Lyford, using his own equipment ,had already created 58 plays and 9 never released, award-winning films. He went to work for Disney Studios, and direct and edit a 1950 Academy Award-winning documentary. Richard H. Lyford’s films have developed a following among film historians since his early “amateur” films are some of the first “indie” films ever created outside of Hollywood. Lyford experimented with special effects, and models, and was becoming an excellent director. His final and most challenging film of this era was “As the Earth Turns”, with a screenplay based on “The Man Who Rocked the Earth” by Arthur Train and Robert Williams Wood, 1915. It was filmed in the Pacific Northwest, in and around Seattle.
“As the Earth Turns” is a 45 minute, sci-fi film that foresaw WWII, future- technology, climate change, and the extreme need for peace, as the world was drifting back into world war again. The main character, “PAX” (“Peace” in Latin), is played by Lyford, himself, a scientist who desperately wants peace and uses climate-changing science to keep mankind from war.