Cinecon Classic Film Festival

07/06/2025

Announcing our Cinecon 61 Honorees 🌟 These three honorees will receive the Cinecon Legacy Award at this year's festival!

Ann-Margret, Mamie Van Doren, and Juliet Mills will be in attendance over Labor Day Weekend to accept their awards, and each star will be on hand as we screen a film from their illustrious careers. Snag your passes NOW to ensure you're there!

Wondering when each star will be around? Check the schedule below:

Fri, Aug 29: Juliet Mills / THE RARE BREED (35MM print)

Sat, Aug 30: Ann-Margret / THE PLEASURE SEEKERS (world premiere screening, remastered from original negative)

Sun, Aug 31: Mamie Van Doren / GUNS GIRLS AND GANGSTERS

You still have time to get your Early Bird Pass to the festival. Head to cinecon.org to snag your pass at the discounted rate!

*appearances are subject to change based on availability*

06/26/2025

While we continue to finalize the lineup for this year's Cinecon Classic Film Festival, let's take a look back at a selection of the films we programmed last year! Some really great, and rare, restorations from the 20s through the 50s, including the recently discovered Clara Bow film THE PILL POUNDER from 1923.

What will this year's festival bring? STAY TUNED! We've got some exciting announcements coming soon.

Looking for a hotel for your stay during Cinecon 61? Check our website (cinecon.org) for details on our host hotel rates.

And don't forget to get your early bird passes NOW!

06/22/2025

We’re excited to announce our host hotel for Cinecon 61! The Sixty Hotel in Beverly Hills, just a short walk to the WGA theater. We only have a limited number of rooms at the Cinecon 61 rate, so click the link below and make your room reservation today to avoid disappointment. We hope your fun-filled Cinecon weekend will be all the better by staying at the Sixty! https://tinyurl.com/Cinecon61Hotel

06/19/2025

While we finalize the lineup for this year’s Cinecon Classic Film Festival, let’s take a look back at some of our previous programming!

The four films featured here were all part of our Cinecon Pop-Up Day held this past April.

Silent film restorations included Anna May Wong’s LAST silent film, PAVEMENT BUTTERFLY, along with the French silent THE SEAMSTRESS, both from 1929.

Other restorations included Jane Powell’s first film, SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD, and the VistaVision epic THE MOUNTAIN, which starred Spencer Tracy and Robert Wagner as brothers climbing a dangerous peak.

What will Cinecon 2025 have in store? Stay tuned! And be sure to get your early bird passes NOW at cinecon.org (link in bio).

06/15/2025

GRAB YOUR PASSES NOW! 🚨 Cinecon Classic Film Festival 2025 takes place Labor Day Weekend (Aug 29-Sept 1) in Los Angeles, and passes are on sale NOW.

Come see rare, classic films on the big screen along with some of the stars that made them 📽️ Early Bird Passes are available starting today at a specially discounted rate. You won’t want to miss out, we’ve got a great lineup this year! Stay tuned, and we look forward to seeing you at the festival!

More information can be found at: cinecon.org

06/02/2025

Save the Date(s)! Cinecon 61 is coming soon! For up-to-date info please visit our website: www.cinecon.org

05/15/2025

A former Cinecon volunteer Ronn Rohe, jas informed us of a screening in Arizona he is volunteeringg at and asked if we could let everyone know about it.

Prescott, Arizona has a long history in film production, beginning in 1912 with The Cringer. The area's ruggedly beautiful scenery and a town full of actual cowboys and horses made it an easy spot to shoot a “horse film," as they were sometime called. City dwellers couldn’t get enough of the wild west. Film star Tom Mix often came to Prescott and shot many of his more than 100 films in the scenic Granite Dells and on his Bar Circle A Ranch, now the site of the Yavapai Hills housing development.

Mix’s association with Prescott was documented by Cinecon’s late President, Bob Birchard, in a 2013 article he wrote for the Prescott Courier newspaper’s “Days Past” feature.

One of those films is 1922’s silent Sky High, with a storyline oddly in tune with today’s news. Grant Newbury (Tom Mix), Deputy Inspector of Immigration at the US/Mexico border is asked by his boss to infiltrate a gang smuggling Chinese workers through the border at Calexico, in order to identify and arrest their ringleader. The action in Sky High takes place in 1922 and while the characters ride horses and fight in saloons, they also use telephones, automobiles and even an aircraft, culminating in a spectacular aerial scene over the Grand Canyon. And while the film didn’t exactly wow the critics, it turned out to be a favorite of moviegoers that year, and was selected in 1988 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

The Prescott Film Festival will present Sky High in the restored Elks Theater with live orchestra accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, of Boulder, Colorado. The five piece chamber ensemble revives the repertoire of silent film orchestras using historic libraries of music, and selecting and fitting a piece of music for each scene in the film.

The Festival runs July 16-20, 2025. Details are at prescottfilmfestival.com, and tickets are available at YCPAC.com.Mix_PFF.jpg

2024 Film Festival

05/11/2025

Our dear Cora Sue was given a tribute by CBS this Sunday Morning May 11th 2025

04/30/2025

Sunday, April 27, 2025, classic film fans from around the globe lost one of the loveliest actresses to appear in films from the 1930s and 40s and we lost a longtime friend. Cora Sue Collins celebrated her 98th birthday on April 17 but suffered a stroke from which she did not recover.

Cinecon President Stan Taffel was honored to present her with the Cinecon Classic Film Festival Legacy Award in 2019. Below, she is pictured receiving the award to her delight.

We were able to screen some of her films over the years, including two that she had never seen before. It is of particular pride that we were able to engage Mike Feinberg from Universal to locate the first film she appeared in, “The Unexpected Father” (1932). Apparently she had been asking many people about it for several years but once we found out, we were able to make that special screening happen, which we did on the day she received her award. She also invited over fifty friends to see it along with her AND she purchased tickets for each one of them. In addition, she signed autographed photos and gave the proceeds to Cinecon.

We are grateful that Mike Feinberg was able to determine that The Unexpected Father was mistakenly entered in the database as “Unexpected Father”, another film entirely. It was out of our friendship with Mike that he went the extra mile and correctly fixed the snafu of many years past and made sure that Cinecon was able to screen it for her and a packed audience for one of the first times in decades.

Bryan Cooper stayed in close contact with Cora Sue and through his efforts, we were able to screen the other film she made yet had never seen before, “The Harvester” (1935). That was in 2024 which was the last time we were together. We wanted to do this for her as she did so much for us.

To say she will be missed is an understatement.

A classy lady all the way.

04/16/2025

In 2019, we ordered this bakery’s Benne Wafers and presented them to our attendees. This story is about them and their rich history.

04/07/2025

Thank you to all the attendees who joined us for our pop-up Cinecon day at Old Town Music Hall in El Segundo on April 6th. The multitalented Stirling Yearian provided a wonderful demonstration of the Mighty Wurlitzer organ. Have a look.

04/02/2025

Please join us this Sunday for a special screening of "Pavement Butterfly" (1929) – ANNA MAY WONG’S LAST SILENT FILM!

Produced at the height of Anna May Wong's fame in Europe, this film was a coproduction between Germany and Britain and filmed on location in Nice, France. Wong plays a dancer in the French Riviera who, after her act takes a deadly turn, finds refuge in the arms of a young painter.

This beautiful restoration will be shown as part of Cinecon "Pop-Up" Day at Old Town Music Hall! To view the full schedule and purchase tickets please visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cinecon-pop-up-day-tickets-1274084183089?aff=oddtdtcreator