Portland group of volunteers are saving and showcasing eclectic 16mm film archive

When Dennis Nyback died in 2022, the Portland film archivist and programmer had amassed a collection of thousands of reels of films, whether they were black and white cartoons, 1960s-era commercials or educational films shown in classrooms. Nyback would share his eclectic finds through curated screenings at independent movie theaters not only in Portland, but also across the U.S. and Europe.

As reported earlier by Oregon ArtsWatch, Nyback’s friends and fellow cinephiles faced a daunting challenge after his death to track down and sort through the thousands of mostly 16mm reels of film he left behind. That effort evolved into the Nyback Archive, with a group of volunteers working to catalogue Nyback’s collection and eventually make it available for public viewing and study. The team leading this effort began sharing some of the gems they’ve found through monthly theater screenings, like the “16mm Nyback Showdown” between dueling projectionists on May 6 at the Clinton Street Theater.

Joining us to talk about the value of preserving analog film in our digital age are Greg Hamilton, a film curator and co-founder of The Nyback Archive, and filmmakers and curators Ioana Cherascu and Garrett Schroeder. Hamilton organizes monthly screenings of films from the archive through his Psychotronic Afterschool Special series at the Hollywood and Clinton Street theaters, which Cherascu and Schroeder also use for screenings of old 16mm reels through their Astral Projections series.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. The Portland film archivist and programmer, Dennis Nyback, amassed a huge collection over the course of many decades. It included black and white cartoons, 1960s-era commercials and educational film strips for classrooms. Nyback would share his eclectic finds through curated screenings at movie theaters, not only in Portland, but around the U.S. and Europe.

After he died in 2022, Nyback’s friends and fellow cinephiles faced a daunting challenge. They had to scramble to track down and sort through the thousands of mostly 16mm reels of film that he left behind. As reported by Oregon ArtsWatch, that effort eventually evolved into the Nyback Archive.

I’m joined now by three members of that team. Greg Hamilton is a film curator and a co-founder of the archive. Ioana Cherascu and Garrett Schroeder are filmmakers and curators. It’s great to have all three of you on the show.

All: Thanks for having us.

Miller: Greg, first – who was Dennis Nyback?

Greg Hamilton: Dennis Nyback was a film curator that spent a lot of time in the Pacific Northwest and was very, very influential. [He] had a 40-year career of collecting films and putting together programs that he programmed out here but also across the United States and over into Europe as well.

He was a huge influence for me. I saw his films here early in Portland, and he’s a big part of the reason why I’m putting together 16mm programs and working with the archive today.

Miller: When you say you saw his films, you mean you saw films that he had put together based on stuff that he had collected?

Hamilton: Correct.

Miller: How would you describe his curatorial interests?

Hamilton: I think that he was a real lover of ephemera, but he had a subversive angle as well. He would always be looking at different subjects and kind of turning them on their ear a little bit. And that was what was so appealing … not only seeing things that I’d never seen before but also put together in the form of an idea that was funny, thought-provoking, lots of different things.

Miller: Do you remember one of the first movies you saw or first films you saw that he had collected or shown?

Hamilton: There’s a lot. He showed a lot of films that are out of circulation and some of them, in fact, were banned. And those were films that I think provoked the most thought. There was an entire program of those that he did that was the gateway for me to come into it.

Miller: Ioana, what about you? How did you get involved in the film archivist scene?

Ioana Cherascu: A bit through Garrett, actually. When we moved to Portland, Garrett already had this 8mm projector and we stumbled upon some 16mm films – we already had an interest in it – at this antique store, brought them home and we’re instantly hooked. It was …

Miller: It was like family films?

Cherascu: Yeah, yeah, just home movies.

Miller: So you basically have no idea what you’re going to see. You paid a couple of dollars for them and said, “Let’s go home and watch them.”

Cherascu: Pretty much, yeah. It was just the mystery of it was very enticing. And we went from 10 films to about 1,000 overnight, because we found a Craigslist listing for the entire Coos County library of films. We acquired them and now they’re part of the archive as well. Those are mostly educationals.

Miller: What was in that library or that collection that you got through the library, through this guy?

Garrett Schroeder: These films are very utopian in a way. They’re all very beautifully made films that convey information in a really compelling way. They’re all getting across different ideas.

Miller: Greg, to go back to you, I mentioned there was an article about this effort that you all and others have been a part of, in Oregon ArtsWatch. And it had a great line. It had this: “Like many collectors, Nyback’s zeal could outstrip his discipline.” What does that mean? I mean, what kind of shape was this collection he’d amassed in when he died?

Hamilton: Well, Dennis moved his collection a lot over his career. He had relationships with educational institutions where he had them housed. But by and large, he had them stored in lots of different places. He had them in garages, he had them in storage units; and when the time came for us to look around, we didn’t know exactly where things were. We had to look through his papers and do a fair amount of research, with help from a lot of people in the group, to find those films. And we’re not actually sure we’ve found them all.

There may be others that are out there, maybe … perhaps in Europe and elsewhere. He lived in New York for a while and had a theater over there as well. But what we have is remarkable. The work that went into it to save it, to put it in storage, and then to put it into a position where we can actually work with it and bring it back to the public, that’s the cool thing.

Miller: The phrase that archivists and librarians used to describe information about information is metadata. Ioana, how much of that was there? I mean, how clear was it what you all had? Once you’d gotten it from the various garages, archives or storage units and started to go through it, did you know what you had?

Cherascu: Not at all. I mean, it was a lot of hearsay of people who had seen his shows and remembered this one show or another, so there was this larger awareness, general awareness of what he had shown. But certainly the bulk of the films were never shown, so we really had no idea, there was no catalog or anything. That was a big part of the effort, especially at the beginning when we were moving them into the initial storage unit, was trying to catalog and just get the titles on paper.

Miller: That’s an analog process, right? You actually have to just then put the film into a projector or an editing machine and watch it to know what it is?

Cherascu: Yes, and the reason is, the films will either come in cans which are labeled or they’ll be just the reels without a can. And sometimes they’ll have a leader that has the title written on it. But a lot of times the cans are mislabeled and that was another one of the instances, I think, where Dennis’ zeal maybe outweighed his discipline. We wrote down all the titles on the cans, but that’s really not a very good indicator of what the films actually are.

So that’s been another part of the process of discovery and letting this archive actually become a real archive that can be used effectively, is actually going through and watching all the films and getting accurate, like you said, metadata.

Miller: It’s a difference between something that’s been hoarded and something that is an archive.

Cherascu: Yes. Cataloging is absolutely the distinguishing element there.

Miller: Let’s listen to part of one of the films from this archive. It’s a song called “Let’s Have Fun.” What is this song? Where is it from?

Schroeder: In the 1930s and 1940s, it was pretty popular that before movies there would be these sing-along segments. So it’ll basically be a little cartoon followed by text on the screen and it encourages the whole audience, the whole theater, to sing along to the film. It’s a very unifying and unique experience that you don’t really see anymore in modern filmgoing experiences.

Miller: But this one, and as we’ll hear in a second, it seems more cutting and ironic. This is about financial meltdown, and ruin, and the Depression. So let’s have a listen to part of it:

[Clip of “Let’s Have Fun” playing, from a film in the Nyback Archive]

“There’s nothing surer,

the rich get rich

and the poor get poorer.

In the meantime

and in between times,

ain’t we got fun?

There’s nothing surer,

the rich get rich

and the poor get poorer.

In the meantime, we’ll be cozy,

everything will be so rosy

after everything is said and done.

Come on and sing

let’s have fun. ”

[Clip ends]

Miller: I’m curious about the generational aspect to this, because Greg, you’re … Well, how old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?

Hamilton: I’m 54.

Miller: Fifty-four. I’m approaching 50. We’re both at ages where, at the early parts of education, certainly in grade school, there was a good chance that we saw films in school, actual film strips. So I imagine there’s a possibility of nostalgia for you here, which, Ioana and Garrett, just based on your smooth faces, I’m assuming you didn’t experience that. How do you think about the age of this media and your lack of exposure to it, in terms of its connection to how you think about archiving it?

Cherascu: It’s definitely more of an archaeological experience, I think, for us, because we don’t have the nostalgia perspective. On the other hand, I think there is a certain romantic notion about exploring the past and seeing these beautiful artifacts. I think for us, it’s a way to recontextualize history and break past the bounds of the internet, really, because I think that a lot of times what we’re exposed to now is just stuff that’s on the internet.

This is a way to push back in time a little bit and explore the context for where we are now. I think that’s what a lot of our shows are about, too, is bringing up elements of the past through this very candid medium, in a way that you know you wouldn’t see otherwise.

Miller: Because a lot of this has not been digitized and not on YouTube.

Cherascu: That’s correct, yes … in fact, most of it.

Schroeder: We actually compare this archive to a 20th century YouTube. The sheer breadth of it is much like YouTube, where it is genuinely anything you can imagine. So in seeing it, you’re having a similar experience just from a different century.

Miller: But the gigantic difference is that in order to see it, you have to go to a place where fellow human beings have selected it and chosen it. “I want to show this day, and the people who are going to be facing the screen, they will see it this day,” as opposed to just randomly arriving at it because of an algorithm.

Cherascu: Yes, exactly.

Hamilton: Curation is is the centerpiece, I think, in a lot of ways, in that Dennis collected all these films and put together 40 years of his life into making this thing happen; and what we’re doing is, we’re essentially picking pieces out of that and using that in ways to create a new piece of art, something that we can share that expresses an idea, or a theme, or is just entertaining.

Miller: Let’s listen to another part from another film. We’re going to hear something from “The Unseen World.” Ioana, what is this?

Cherascu: This is a film from the Coos County Library. “Unseen World” is a great series, actually. It’s three films. It’s one of the first things we saw that really made us fall in love with this. There’s one about space, there’s another one about microscopy and then … what was the other one, Garrett?

Schroeder: I think the other one was about the oceans, actually.

Cherascu: Yes, it was about the oceans.

Schroeder: Written by Isaac Asimov, just a really phenomenal look at the breadth of the universe, I guess, in this little three-film series.

Miller: Let’s have a listen. This is part of “Unseen World.”

[Clip from “Unseen World” playing, from the Nyback Archive]

“In 1938, Harold Edgerton, a pioneer in high-speed photography, made black and white films at 1,200 frames per second. When run at the normal 24 frames per second, each moment of time is magnified 50-fold. A second takes nearly a minute to pass our eyes. Modern high-speed photography goes much further and makes a single second stretch to nearly seven minutes.”

[Clip ends]

Miller: That is from the Isaac Asimov-written “Unseen World” series. It was bought on Craigslist through the Coos County Library by my guests Ioana Cherascu and Garrett Schroeder.

You all have been creating events you call the “16mm Nyback Showdown.” The next one is tomorrow night, Tuesday night at the Clinton Street Theater. Greg, what happens at these showdowns?

Hamilton: Oh, it’s a lot of fun. The three of us get together, we have two projectors, and the whole idea is an organic experience, where we draw from the archive films that we like, that we think are interesting. We put them in a box. We both have films that we don’t know what each other has, and then we just do basically a call and response, where I’ll play a film, and then Garrett and Ioana will play a film. We’ll go back and it’s based on like, “OK, you played a cartoon, well, I’m gonna play a cartoon,” playing with themes, playing with ideas. Each show is completely unique and it’s an opportunity for the audience to see what’s in the archive, but it’s also an opportunity for us to have a creative experience where we’re just kind of making it up as we go along.

Miller: I want to play another part of a film that you’ve found, Greg. Let’s listen to it, first in the intro and then we can talk about it. Let’s have a listen:

[Clip from “The Doodler” playing, from the Nyback Archive]

“Since the beginning of time, man has been doodling. Only recently, however, has the activity become something of a national pastime. And only recently have scholars in a number of fields begun to interpret this phenomenon. For the most part, it has been found to be a harmless enough diversion. In certain rare instances, however, it can be dangerous. This is the story of a man whom we shall call David Watt … [piano music].”

[Clip ends]

Miller: What is that from?

Hamilton: That is from a film called “The Doodler.” It’s produced by the National Film Board of Canada and it is a mockumentary of sorts about a doodler and his history in doodling. And it’s really funny and it catches, I think, everybody off guard a little bit. But it’s just one of the many, many examples of the short films and the interesting ephemera that most people haven’t seen. So by putting these shows on, we get a chance to share that with them.

Miller: I want to play one more clip from a film that your team collectively has found. This is also originally from the Coos County Library collection. This is called “Silent Forest” and I wanted to play this because it’s about – as you’ll hear in just a second – kelp forests, and it is about issues that seem so relevant, so connected to stuff we’ve talked about on this show, at this point, many times in the first quarter of the 21st century. Let’s have a listen:

[Clip from “Silent Forest” playing, from the Nyback Archive]

“Huge seaweed plants called giant kelp once formed lush foliage that sheltered life as profuse and vital as that of any land forest. Today, the forest is no more. What killed this forest? Sewage effluent nurtured excessive sea urchin growth. Here is a sea urchin eating. Sea urchins, predators of kelp, graze the bottom of all plant life at the rate of 33 feet per month. By 1960, the lush golden foliage of some of the kelp beds off Los Angeles and San Diego had been reduced to an occasional plant.”

[Clip ends]

Miller: Ioana, I feel like I’ve mentioned this before, but often when I think about archives, the image that comes to mind for me is the last scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” when they have this entire adventure, then they put the ark back in a box and they put it in this enormous warehouse where you can imagine, as a viewer, it’s never going to be opened again. What’s your vision for how to avoid that, for how these films that you all love can actually be seen, used and put through projectors again?

Cherascu: A big part of that is just what we’re doing, which is curating shows and showing them to people. I think that the value of these films is not in just keeping them somewhere. It is, of course, in letting them be seen.

I want to speak to your point too, before you played “Silent Forest,” which is that a lot of the issues that come up in these films are very relevant issues. There’s issues of ecology, of race, of wealth inequality. So there are all of these themes that come up a lot and that I think can sometimes, in my experience anyway, feel like very modern problems, but they’re not. There’s a continuum of how we’ve struggled as a society with these issues, and how, at times, they’ve improved and then regressed.

So I think it’s really helpful to see how people dealt with these things in the past. For example, the Civil Rights Movement, I think, is hugely both affirming – that change can happen – and also, I think it puts in perspective that, A, these are not new, and B, we know better. With the ecology stuff too, I think you get films from the 30s even, about how we’re not responsible with our resources. And again, that’s both affirming and also deeply depressing because you see that there was an awareness and people were passionate about making those changes. Yet, it’s still such an issue. It feels like we’ve gone nowhere with it.

Miller: Ioana, Garrett and Greg, thanks so much.

All: Thank you.

Miller: Ioana Cherascu and Garrett Schroeder are filmmakers and curators. Greg Hamilton is a curator as well, also one of the co-founders of the Nyback Archive.

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