Dawson City: Frozen Time (DVD)

Directed by Bill Morrison

Presented from a director-approved High Definition transfer, Second Run are delighted to present one of the most acclaimed films of recent years.

Named as one of the best films of 2017 by more than 100 critics worldwide, Dawson City: Frozen Time tells the bizarre true story of a long-lost collection of over 500 nitrate film prints dating from the early 1900s found buried in the permafrost at a remote Yukon mining town.

Morrison’s haunting documentary links that gold rush town to the dawn of cinema. Using the amazing unearthed newsreels, silent movies (in some cases, the only copies in existence of films by D W Griffith and Tod Browning, among others) and documentary images of the town, Morrison conjures the birth of the modern age and creates a unique kaleidoscope of cinema and history.

Our region-free Blu-ray and DVD editions includes a brand-new filmed interview with director Bill Morrison, his exceptional short film The Letter (2018) created from fragments of films from the Dawson City Film Find to present a unique new work, a filmed postscript to the story, 24-page booklet and (exclusive to the Blu-ray edition) eight selected, original film reels from the Dawson City Film Find... and more!

2017 Winner: Boston Society of Film Critics / Best Documentary
2017 Winner: Critics' Choice Documentary Awards / Most Innovative Documentary
2017 Winner: International Documentary Association / Best Editing
2017 Winner: Sitges International Film Festival / New Visions Award

"In addition to being filled with as many twists and turns as a first-rate suspense thriller, 'Dawson City' is packed with near-metaphysical intimations, both awe-inspiring and humbling... an instantaneously recognizable masterpiece" Glenn Kenny, New York Times

"The true magic that 'Dawson City' captures is, simply, the mystery of film itself: a medium that turned people into shadows that burned brighter than life" Variety

"A bona fide adventure through history, hopscotching across the turn of the 19th century... the density of Morrison’s detail and the twists in his long-game storytelling make for a constant titillating simmer of discovery, a secret history round every corner" Nic Rapold, Film Comment

"The thrilling documentary 'Dawson City: Frozen Time' is indescribable not because it's ambiguous (it's totally straightforward) but because it does so many things so beautifully it is hard to know where to begin" Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

"This beautiful ambient documentary from experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison... is astonishing to behold [...] It actually doesn't feel quite right to call this a documentary, as the rough-hewn beauty of the images, set to a fittingly lugubrious score make this feel like a lucid dream writ large." David Jenkins, Little White Lies

"This a celebration of preservation and the rediscovery of images long presumed lost... Morrison sculpts the footage into a poetic portrait of a place as it endures the ravages of time while being equally seduced by the remarkable tale of the film reels and their subterranean survival." Ben Nicholson, MUBI