Our Earliest Film - 1893 | The Archivist Presents | #435

I was at the wonderful Hippfest Silent Cinema Festival in Scotland last week, and it has prompted me to share our earliest film. Blacksmith Scene (also known as Blacksmith Scene #1 and Blacksmithing Scene) is an 1893 American short black-and-white silent film directed by William K.L. Dickson, the Scottish-French inventor who, while under the employ of Thomas Edison, developed the first fully functional motion picture camera. It is historically significant as the first Kinetoscope film shown in public exhibition on May 9, 1893 and is the earliest known example of actors performing a role in a film. You can license this footage for commercial use through AP Archive. The story number is BM247 Find out more about AP Archive: Twitter: Facebook: Instagram: