HeardTell: Stories From the North Carolina Room

Wednesday July 25, 2018 from 6:00 to 7:00

Asheville’s Movies: The Silent Era

Frank Thompson

Author and film historian

Asheville lured major film companies such as Paramount Pictures as well as itinerant movie makers who made short comedies on the streets of Asheville, cast entirely with locals. Frank Thompson will use photograph stills and real film footage as he talks about movies produced in Asheville from the earliest in 1900 to the final silent film produced in 1929.

In 2016, Thompson restored The Conquest of Canaan, a feature film produced in Asheville in 1921. Conquest was then believed to be the only surviving Asheville silent.

Mr. Thompson is the author of 43 books. His most recent are Asheville Movies Volume 1: The Silent Era and Nothing Sacred and The Cinema of William Wellman, co-authored with John Andrew Gallager.