Welcome to the third Fresh Air Award! Four cinephiles continue a Fourwind Films tradition of awarding a film that pushed cinema forward the most as an artform during a particular decade. To be nominated, a motion picture has to have changed movies in some way and made a lasting impression on how movies are made today. This episode delves into the decade that saw the beginning of successful commercial sound in cinema: 1920-1929.

Before getting into the nominations with the panelists, our host Justin Joseph Hall goes through a quick history lesson on what was happening in the decade businesswise and technology-wise. 

The four cinephiles who select the nominees in this panel are cinephiles Elizabeth Chatelain, Tracey Goessel, Justin Joseph Hall, and Kevin Hinman. If the piece has moving images and came out in the appropriate decade, it is eligible for nomination. This group chose an array of documentaries, shorts, animated films, and feature films, including films with the first synchronized score with animation, the first montage, a commercially successful duo tone color film, and the first soundtrack synched on the film strip.

Nominations by each panelist:

Elizabeth Chatelain nominees
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
Un Chien Andalou (1929)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

Tracey Goessel nominees
Nanook of the North (1922)
Don Juan (1926)
Steamboat Willie (1928)
The Play House (1921)
The Toll of the Sea (1922)

Justin Joseph Hall nominees
Un Chien Andalou (1929)
Nosferatu (1922)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

Kevin Hinman nominees
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
Drifters (1929)
Un Chien Andalou (1929)
Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924)
The Gold Rush (1924)

To find the 1920’s Fresh Air Award winner click on this link!

We hope you enjoy this episode! Share with us your own lists, comments, arguments, and films that we left out via social media @fourwindfilms. We’re on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and LinkedIn.

Thanks for listening, Season 7 to come shortly!

Thank you to our panelists who did joined this out of their passion for cinema.

Credits for podcast:
Production Company - Fourwind Films
Fresh Air Award Contributors for 1900s Decade - Elizabeth Chatelain, Tracey Goessel, Justin Joseph Hall, & Kevin Hinman
Host - Justin Joseph Hall
Editor - Billie Jo Laitinen
Sound Mixer - Hans Bilger
Additional Sound Recordist - Elizabeth Chatelain, Kevin Hinman, Ricky Rosario
The theme song of Season 6 is Getting It Done by Kevin MacLeod.

Additional Music MOMFG & The Drums! provided by Kevin Hinman & Magnum Opus for interludes.

Music in the public domain used in this podcast:

Deep Blue Sea - Clara Smith

One of Battleship Potemkin’s Scores - Eisenstein wanted the scores to be updated about every decade.

Don Juan Soundtrack - Context on who wrote it “William Axt used two pieces that owned by Robbins-Engel, "The Fire Agitato" and "In Gloomy Forest," along with several pieces of European classical music including compositions by Richard Strauss.