Buried News

In 1929, a bank manager in Dawson City, Yukon Territory buried hundreds of silent film reels in a defunct swimming pool, in an effort to dispose of them safely. Nearly half a century  later, in 1978, the reels were uncovered by a construction team, and the collection of silent films became known as the Dawson Film Find. Among the 533 reels that were ultimately restored, there were 114 newsreels, each reel containing 5 or 6 individual news stories, each one about a minute in length.

Four of these news stories, produced between 1917 and 1920, have been included here in “Buried News”. Seen together, they reveal how race has historically been used as a tool in the USA to divide people for the commercial or political gain of those in power. Archival footage captures the aftermath of race riots in East St. Louis, Illinois, 1917, and in Omaha, Nebraska, 1919, as well as extremely rare, and heretofore believed to be lost footage of the siege of the Lexington, Kentucky courthouse in 1920.

End credits include AFP footage of rioters storming of the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021.