The Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center is announcing the full lineup of rare cinema and special guests to be featured at the inaugural Library of Congress Festival of Film and Sound. The new four-day film festival will be held June 15-18 in association with the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center at the American Film Institute’s beautifully restored 1938 art deco theater in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Classic film lovers from across the country will join together for a weekend of screenings, discussions and presentations at the inaugural Library of Congress Festival of Film and Sound. The festival will celebrate the Library’s rich moving image and recorded sound collections. A four-day retrospective of films from the 1920s through the early 1950s, the festival will be a place for fans, archivists and historians to see 35mm prints of rare films from the renowned collections of the Library of Congress and other top film archives, meet new friends and discuss films and film history.

The festival’s theme of “Music and Sound” includes two presentations with Oscar-winning motion picture sound designer and sound mixer Ben Burtt, and a program about composer Max Steiner by his biographer, Steven C. Smith. The rare films shown in 35mm include W.C. Fields in “So’s Your Old Man” (1926), “Submarine” (1928) from director Frank Capra, James Cagney in “Ceiling Zero” (1936), director Dorothy Arzner’s adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Craig’s Wife” (1936), the final silent film of Douglas Fairbanks, “The Iron Mask” (1929), and the newly restored print by the Library and Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation of the lost classic, “Memory Lane” (1926).

Featuring many titles currently unavailable on home media or streaming services, the festival will showcase restored archival 35mm prints from the Library’s collections and other preeminent archives, as well 4K digital presentations of new restorations and rarities. All silent films will feature live musical accompaniment. This will be the first film festival devoted to showcasing the national library’s film collections.

Festival passes are now available at AFI.com/Silver for $150. Passes grant admission to all festival programs taking place June 15-18, 2023.

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