Film Screening: Blazing the Trail

The Boston Irish Film Festival presents Blazing the Trail: The Story of the Kalem Film Company in Ireland on Monday, Nov. 23, 2009 at 7pm at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Mass. Blazing the Trail presents a selection of rarely-seen films with live musical accompaniment and interspersed with popular Irish parlor songs from the 1910s. All of the films have been digitally restored, with some receiving their first public screening in almost a century. Affectionately known as the "O’Kalems," screenwriter/actress Gene Gauntier, Sidney Olcott and their crew became the first American filmmakers to shoot overseas and the first to produce films that reflected the realities of the Irish experience. A sentimental mix of rebel dramas, folk romances, and tales of exile and emigration, their films proved tremendously popular with the Irish in America.

Tickets are $9.75 and are available online at www.coolidge.org or at the Coolidge Corner Theatre box office.