Past Film Screenings

The Sprocket Society presents occasional film screenings at venues in Seattle. Catalogued below are past screenings and series since our first public show in 2008.

Our programs center on a range of topics and genres: silent film, early sound, genre films, experimental and underground cinema, and more. Our Secret Matinee series have also recreated the classic weekend matinee experience, complete with weekly serial episodes.

In many cases program notes were provided to the audience. There are PDFs of these archived in the Library section of this web site.

All Sprocket Society programs to date have featured 16mm prints.

Upcoming Event Announcements

There are several ways to learn of upcoming Sprocket Society screenings and events.

  • Search and Rescue: Sound Found
    March 4, 2008 | Northwest Film Forum
    Rare prints of early sound films. Presented as part of the series Search and Rescue.
  • Keep Warm, Burn Britain! An Evening of Films, Performance, and Live Music
    April 13, 2008 | The JewelBox Theater at The Rendezvous
    Co-presented with The Disembodied Theater Corporation
    Filmmaker and restorationist Ross Lipman presents a Magic Lantern / slide show and a selection of his earlier experimental short films and documentaries. Plus live music by Ruby Thicket and The Philistine Liberation Orchestra.
  • Georges Méliès: Impossible Voyager
    May 15, 2008 | Northwest Film Forum
    Great special effects epics by the pioneering French filmmaker presented with unconventional musical selections, including live Victrola DJing (courtesy of Climax Golden Twins) and live narration.
  • The Sunday Secret Matinees
    Sundays, August 31 - November 23, 2008 | Northwest Film Forum
    A three-month series recreating the weekend matinees of yesteryear. Each week's show included an episode of the serial Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940), a cartoons and/or short subject, and a secret (unannounced) feature film (usually classic science fiction or horror).
  • The Secret Sunday Matinee II: Adventure! And Stuff!
    Sundays, March 1 - May 24, 2009 | Northwest Film Forum
    The weekend matinee series returns, this time featuring the classic adventure serial Zorro's Fighting Legion (1939). The features were more diverse this time, including silent film, art-house and foreign releases, swashbucklers...and sci-fi and horror, of course.
  • Heavy Visuals '69: Electronic Cinema and Experimental Film
    September 23, 2009 | Northwest Film Forum
    Presented as part of the year-long series 69, celebrating the films of 1969
    Selected landmarks of the 1969 avant garde, with films by Kenneth Anger, Larry Jordan, Scott Bartlett, Jud Yalkut & Nam June Paik, Michael Whitney, Piotr Kamler, and Stephen Gebhardt.
  • Focal Points: Documentary Shorts from 1969
    October 14, 2009 | Northwest Film Forum
    Presented as part of the year-long series 69, celebrating the films of 1969
    Films by Gene Boomer, Brian Patrick, California Newsreel, Tom Palazzolo, Stephen E. Gebhardt, and the US Dept. of Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA).
  • Halloween Spook-Show Spectacular October 30, 2009 | Grand Illusion Cinema
    The Swami was our Monster Of Ceremonies for an old-fashioned evening of scary short films and cartoons, plus a live seance which unleashed a terrifying torrent of ghosts, demons, and actual dancing skeletons! Watch the trailer (by Mark Palm).
  • Sixties Synaesthetics
    April 14, 2010 | Northwest Film Forum
    A selection of especially potent visual music films by Storm De Hirsch, Robert Breer, Jud Yalkut, Barry Spinello, Scott Bartlett, and Tony Conrad; plus a very rare screening of a 1940s Auroratone film by Cecil Stokes. Presented as part of the series Visual Music, Sensory Cinema 1920s-1970s, co-presented with the Northwest Film Forum in association with the Center for Visual Music. The series was made possible by a grant from the National Endowment For The Arts. Visit the companion web site.
  • Stan Brakhage's Dog Star Man (1961-1964)
    August 4, 2010 | Northwest Film Forum
    Co-presented with Third Eye Cinema
    A new 16mm print, presented with Stephen E. Gebhardt's short Legendary Epics Yarns and Fables. Part 2: Stan Brakhage (1969).
  • First Words: The Birth of Sound Cinema, 1895-1929
    September 23, 2010 | Northwest Film Forum
    Rare short films spanning the birth and early evolution of sound film. Included a re-enactment of Lyman Howe's 1897 "sound film" showings, using period 78 RPM records played on antique hand-wound acoustic phonographs courtesy of Climax Golden Twins.
  • Mystery Theatre: Secret Cinema at the Grand Illusion
    September 27 - 30, 2010 | Grand Illusion Cinema
    A four-day series of rare feature films paired with short subjects. Titles were not announced in advance (hence the mystery).
  • The Halloween Spook-Show Spectacular II: The To-Die Show
    October 31, 2010 | Grand Illusion Cinema
    Johnny Carcass hosted special guests The Mummy, The Wolf-Man, and Frankenstein's monster (who serenaded us with a song), all mixed in with spook-arific shorts and cartoons. But things got weird when the long-haired alien rode in on a dinosaur and declared war on Halloween...
  • Breakaway: Films by Bruce Conner 1958-2006
    November 11, 2010 | Northwest Film Forum
    Co-presented with Third Eye Cinema
    Ten landmark short films by the legendary "found footage" filmmaker, including A Movie (1958), Television Assassination (1963-64), Valse Triste (1978), and Luke (1967-2004, shown as DigiBeta video, its original format).
  • Sci-Fi Saturday Secret Matinees
    Saturdays, January 8 - March 26, 2011 | Grand Illusion Cinema
    The third installment of our Secret Matinee series, now at a new home. Weekly episodes of the original Flash Gordon serial (1936) were paired with secret sci-fi classic features organized into monthly themes: Japanese Giants, Weird Worlds, and Crazy Creatures.
  • Michael Snow's Wavelength (1967)
    February 9, 2011 | Northwest Film Forum
    Co-presented with Third Eye Cinema
    A new 16mm print of the experimental classic, shown with Snow's short subject Breakfast (Table-Top Dolly) (1976).
  • The Heart of Life: Robert Enrico's trilogy of Ambrose Bierce Films
    May 8, 2011 | Grand Illusion Cinema
    A rare screening of the French director's haunting trilogy of award-winning films from 1961-62: The Mockingbird, Chickamauga, or the River of Death, and the original unedited version of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.
  • Funny Stuff: Silent Comedies and Cartoons
    July 16, 2011 | Grand Illusion Cinema
    Classic two-reeler comedies with Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, and Ben Turpin plus silent-era cartoons featuring Felix the Cat, Koko the Clown, and Bobby Bumps.
  • Visions: Animation and Abstraction. Experimental Masterpieces, 1908-1994
    August 10, 2011| Northwest Film Forum
    Co-presented with Third Eye Cinema
    An all-star selection of 19 experimental shorts by 15 directors, including works by Len Lye, Mary Ellen Bute, Ed Emshwiller, Stan Vanderbeek, Hans Richter, Oskar Fischinger, Emile Cohl, and others.
  • D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916)
    October 25, 2011 | Northwest Film Forum
  • Secret Halloween Classic Triple Feature
    October 30, 2011 | Grand Illusion Cinema
    A marathon triple-bill of all-time classic monster movies, each paired with a Halloween cartoon or short.
  • First Light: The Birth of Cinema, 1894-1901
    November 16, 2011 | Northwest Film Forum
    A selection of pioneering short films from the US, France, and Britain.
  • Sci-Fi Saturday Secret Matinees II
    Saturdays, January 7 - March 24, 2012 | Grand Illusion Cinema
    Our fourth Secret Matinee series. Weekly episodes of the serial Buck Rogers (1939) paired with secret sci-fi classic features organized into monthly themes: Space Madness, Steampunk Adventures, and Beasts from Beyond.
  • Experimental Memoria I: George Kuchar
    March 20, 2012 | Northwest Film Forum
    The feature film The Devil's Cleavage (1973), plus the short Hold Me While I'm Naked (1966). Part of the series Experimental Memoria.
  • Experimental Memoria II: Robert Breer
    April 18, 2012 | Northwest Film Forum
    A selection of 16 short films spanning the artist's career. Part of the series Experimental Memoria.
  • Impaired: Movies Under the Influence, 1908-1978
    April 27, 2012 | Grand Illusion Cinema
    Over a dozen cartoons, shorts, comedies and soundies devoted to booze, dope, altered states, and a little bit of sex.