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In October 16, 1966, around 9pm, a fire began in a building adjacent to Alfred Leslie’s studio on Broadway and 22nd. Hundreds of paintings and drawings by Leslie were lost, as well as almost all of his films. Among the lost works was the 120-minute Birth of a Nation 1965, which had just screened for programmers of the upcoming New York Film Festival. From the debris, Leslie recovered fourteen minutes of the picture track and some sound elements. Twenty-five years later, he began work on this compressed restoration. Birth of a Nation 1965 was shot with sound-on-film 8mm (a briefly-tested format that was never widely produced), then blown up and finished on 35mm. Text which appears in the film is adapted by Leslie from works by Frank O’Hara. Artist Willem de Kooning appears as Captain Nemo, and actor Patrick McGee (Marat/Sade and A Clockwork Orange) reads the works of the Marquis De Sade while hipsters tumble about in a simulated orgy. With theme music by Leiber and Stoller, conducted by modern classical composer Morton Feldman.
