Kate Saccone '13 Curates 'New Beginnings'

February 21, 2023

Kate Saccone ’13, an alumna of the Film and Media Studies Program, was invited to curate a program of films titled New Beginnings as part of the Netherland Silent Film Festival—the biggest film festival in the Netherlands in the field of Silent Film. 

According to the program’s description, New Beginnings draws solely from films made by women filmmakers and “is all about the new: it is about fresh starts, new opportunities, unexpected reversals, exciting changes, and surprising new perspectives. It brings together films that celebrate the pleasures as well as the growing pains of every new beginning.”

The program consisted of six short films—all directed by women and made between 1910 and 1940—and premiered at the festival on Saturday, January 13, 2023.

Kate Saccone is a researcher, editor and PhD student at the University of Amsterdam. She is also project manager of the Women Film Pioneers Project, a digital public platform that promotes research into the role of women in silent film. During her time at Columbia, Saccone worked as a research assistant for Professor Jane Gaines’ Women Film Pioneers Project and began to focus on silent cinema and women’s participation in film production in the early 20th century.