Georges Méliès Film Gugusse et l’Automate Screened at Packard Campus Cinema

A lost short film from French cinema pioneer Georges Méliès has been recovered from an attic in the United States, marking a significant retrieval for early film history.

The 1897 silent film, titled Gugusse et l’Automate, was discovered in a wooden trunk in Pennsylvania. The 45-second piece of cinema had remained in the possession of a single family for a century, moving through various locations including a barn and a garage before being found in an attic.

The discovery was made by Bill McFarland, a retired professor and the great-grandson of a projectionist from rural Pennsylvania. McFarland found old film reels that he felt were too valuable to discard, although he initially did not know their historical significance or how to view them.

According to reports, McFarland first attempted to sell the reels to an antique dealer. However, the dealer declined the purchase after learning that the nitrate film reels were highly flammable and posed a risk of explosion.

The recovered footage has since been restored and digitized. On April 2, 2026, the film was viewed at the Packard Campus of the Library of Congress’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia.

Preservation and Public Access

The restoration of Gugusse et l’Automate ensures that this fragment of early French cinema is preserved for future study. The Library of Congress has made the digitized version of the film available online via its website.

The recovery of such works is rare due to the volatile nature of nitrate film, which was the standard for early cinema but is prone to decay and combustion if not stored under strictly controlled conditions.

Georges Méliès is recognized as one of the most influential figures in the birth of cinema, known for his innovative use of special effects and narrative storytelling in an era when film was primarily used to capture simple scenes of daily life.

The retrieval of this specific 1897 short provides a direct glimpse into the early creative output of Méliès and the technical state of cinema at the end of the 19th century.