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Norton Simon Museum & Visual Culture Program Event

Friday, January 16, 2026
4:30pm to 6:30pm
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Off Campus
Film Screening | Dawson City: Frozen Time (2017), Directed by Bill Morrison

This meditation on cinema's past pieces together the bizarre history of a long-lost collection of 533 nitrate film prints from the early 1900s, discovered buried under the permafrost in a former Canadian gold rush town. Their story conjures the forgotten ties between the fledgling film industry and Manifest Destiny in North America. Dawson City: Frozen Time depicts the history of this Canadian gold rush town by chronicling the life cycle of a singular film collection through its exile, burial, rediscovery and salvation.

Film Series: All that Glitters
Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Gold: Enduring Power, Sacred Craft, this series organized by Brian Jacobson, Professor of Visual Culture at Caltech, explores gold's enduring power to attract, enchant, bewitch and beguile. From Charlie Chaplin's droll send-up of the Klondike gold rush to medieval Japan and the legend of El Dorado, these films illustrate how gold's broad cultural significance has made it an appealing subject for filmmakers the world over. Each film begins with an introduction by Jacobson.

Free with Museum admission.

No reservations taken. The theater opens 30 minutes prior to the screening and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Norton Simon Museum
411 West Colorado Boulevard
Pasadena, California 91105

For more information, please contact the Norton Simon Museum by phone at 626-449-6840.