By Peg Aloi

This powerful documentary is a paean to what was once thought to be the immortal impact of cinema and television, a thoughtful commentary on life’s richness — and its inevitable impermanence.

Film Is Dead. Long Live Film! directed by Peter Flynn. Screening at the Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, on May 10 and 11.

A scene from Peter Flynn’s documentary Film Is Dead. Long Live Film!

No doubt you’re reading this review on your phone, or a laptop, or maybe a tablet. Print journalism is dead, or nearly so. The grim reality is that most of us consume media via digital devices these days, but despite that, there is an ongoing cultural craze for collecting older forms of media, including its packaging. The popularity of vinyl records has led to a trend: new recordings made via this trusty format. There is interest in vintage magazines, VHS tapes, and film reels. This fascinating new documentary by Peter Flynn, premiering this weekend at the Brattle Theatre, focuses on collectors of old celluloid films, celebrated as part of an eccentric, passionate subculture that’s dedicated to preserving a fragile art form that defines history in ways no other art form can.

A fleeting opening sequence of vintage black-and-white countdown graphics comes before the mysterious first shot of Film Is Dead. Long Live Film!: it is a pile of rusting metal objects in the middle of a forest. Closer looks reveal old lighting equipment (imprinted with the letters “MGM”) and rotting celluloid inscribed with words that are just barely visible: “Mickelson Barber Shop” and “Lady and the Tramp.” Then we’re in a small room with a man (Helge Bernhardt) prying open an ancient film canister; it contains coiled up celluloid that is warped and discolored. He intones softly that he doesn’t think he’ll be able to do anything with it. Next comes text overlaying images of Bernhardt playing 35mm footage on a projector; we’re reminded of the first exhibition of motion pictures by the Lumiere Brothers in 1895. One critic said the implication of the invention was that “death will no longer be absolute or final” because the actions and words of our loved ones could be recorded in real time and shared again and again. Bernhardt then looks over another piece of film, and it is in good condition. But, he notes, this will also decay in time — urgency and resignation intermingle.

Like many of the other collectors portrayed in this film, Bernhardt not only acquires old films, but works hard to restore and preserve them. Film wasn’t intended to be stored in pristine condition in airless rooms; it was made to be played, to keep its fragile material supple. These collectors aren’t just interested in owning these films, but in sharing and exhibiting them. There are small film clubs, annual conventions, and small art-house theaters where collectors gather and share stories of discovery and loss. Because so much film footage has been discarded or lost (90 percent by one estimation), most of what remains is fairly obscure. Some collectors specialize in noncinematic short subjects, film sound recordings, or cartoons made for theatrical exhibition.

We see Chip Ordway go to an old abandoned drive-in theater in Bath, New York, to add to his precious collection of short “snipes” shown before features, such as movie theater snack bar ads. Ordway calls what he does a combination of “archaeology, restoration, and reuse.” Stan Taffel collects kinescopes: films that were made of live television broadcasts, the only method of recording them prior to the invention of videotape. The pride of his collection includes footage from a variety show featuring a young Sammy Davis Jr., performing with his father and uncle. Taffel also has rare footage of a live audition for CBS of a then-unknown actor named Dick Van Dyke. These collectors are not just acquisitive hobbyists but historians in their own right. They view their possessions not just as unique treasures but as crucial revelations of art, entertainment, history, and human endeavor.

Flynn follows one amateur restoration project that is an impressive feat of dedication and tireless work: the rejuvenation of a gloriously low-budget 1929 King Kong-esque caper called The King of the Kongo. (The restoration is screening on May 11 at the Somerville Theatre.) The reconstruction challenge was formidable: its sound recorded on shellac disks, the film was in pieces via multiple damaged prints. The syncing of image and sound was a delicate, difficult task. The finished product by collector and restorer Eric Grayson is glorious to behold: a feat of determined, painstaking care whose culmination has been the restoration of the crispness and contrast of the original nitrate print the way it looked almost a hundred years ago.

Film footage in need of repair in Film Is Dead. Long Live Film!

As thrilling as the stories of rescued footage are, the tales of what has been lost or willfully destroyed are harrowing. The extreme flammability of nitrate film has caused countless fires, some of the conflagrations causing loss of life. Taffel describes 18-wheel trucks dumping entire loads full of kinescope reels into New York’s East River. He also mentions that Universal Studios destroyed all but a dozen of their entire silent film output in 1948, believing, simply, that these films were worthless. As one collector puts it, everything they’ve managed to save, mostly from burrowing through trash bins and spelunking in old theaters and warehouses, is an exception to the rule and should have been destroyed decades ago. And here we come to a very intriguing aspect of this subculture: technically, private ownership of these films is illegal. Thus these nerdy amateurs are, on occasion, treated like stealthy thieves. A brilliant parody film made by collectors in 1966, Captain Celluloid vs. The Film Pirates, itself a celluloid rarity, captures this absurd conundrum: preservation classified as theft.

Seeing the efforts made to preserve and exhibit old films makes it clear how precarious the legacy of celluloid film is, and how collecting can become a personal obsession, one that often encourages extreme hoarding-like behavior. (Ira Gallen’s holdings are vast and hopelessly unorganized.) Some collectors describe having to deal with the at times filthy and unpleasant conditions encountered when finding old film in forgotten places. As collectors grow older, they want to preserve the legacy of their efforts, if possible. Collector and projectionist Lou DiCrescenzo, who has collected films for over half a century, is overjoyed when a much younger enthusiast becomes his apprentice. Ray Faiola, who works for CBS, was inspired by beloved film restoration denizens Karl and Don Malkames to collect, restore, and exhibit old films, partnering with an old theater in Ellenville, New York. Restoration is an expensive endeavor, as is exhibition. Film is Dead. Long Live Film! makes it clear that, despite the enthusiasm of collectors, unless an all-out effort is made to fund the preservation of what little film remains, this physical aspect of the world’s cultural record will soon be gone.

The value of cinema as an irreplaceable chronicle of our lives is dramatized by the emotions conveyed by the collectors and in glimpses of the films themselves, images of which are shown throughout Flynn’s engaging odyssey. Along with voice-over descriptions of “vinegar syndrome” (a term for the degradation of film), we see the faces of Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and Katharine Hepburn. We see a 1977 print of Star Wars, faded to monochrome maroon. And, in addition to the huge output from studios in Hollywood and New York, there are amateur films. When 8mm and 16mm cameras and projectors became available for consumer use, amateur home movies, many shot on Kodak film, proliferated. But the shift to videotape eventually killed this market. DVDs killed videotapes. Streaming is killing DVDs. Digital photographs and social media killed photo albums. I could go on.

Many viewers will no doubt be moved by the existential crisis writ large here. Film Is Dead. Long Live Film! often feels like a farewell to an art form, an inescapable memento mori. Just as he did with his 2016 film about projectionists, The Dying of the Light, Flynn captures the human side of the film industry through storytelling nuance and evocative visuals. This is more than just a documentary exploring the world of film collecting. It is a paean to what was once thought to be the immortal impact of cinema and television, a thoughtful commentary on life’s richness — and its inevitable impermanence.

Peg Aloi is a former film critic for the Boston Phoenix and member of the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Critics Choice Awards, and the Alliance for Women Film Journalists. She taught film studies in Boston for over a decade. She has written on film, TV, and culture for web publications like Time, Vice, Polygon, Bustle, Dread Central, Mic, Orlando Weekly, Refinery29, and Bloody Disgusting. Her blog “The Witching Hour” can be found on substack.