Deserted Films brings vintage Indio back to life at the Riverside County Fair

Local archivists are offering a window to the past for attendees of this year’s Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival. Deserted Films will debut an exhibition of vintage home movies starting Feb. 13, featuring footage captured in the Coachella Valley between 1948 and 1974.

The 15-minute curated reel of the festival’s “golden years” can be viewed at the new National Date Festival Museum on the fairgrounds. Founders Melissa Dollman and Devin Orgeron will anchor the installation with two in-person presentations on Feb. 16 at 1 p.m. and Feb. 26 at 5 p.m.

“The Date Festival, it seems to us, has been actively digging into their own past as part of their rebranding efforts,” they noted.

Dollman and Orgeron have been rescuing orphaned 8mm, Super-8, and 16mm film reels since 2021. The two are both academics, Dollman is a trained audiovisual archivist with a Ph.D. in American Studies and Orgeron is a professor emeritus of Film Studies at North Carolina State University.

“Disconnected from their makers, removed from their contexts, home movies end up at estate sales, yard sales, auctions, thrift stores, and antique shops,” the founders explain on their website. They are particularly interested in footage shot in the Coachella Valley by amateurs for home movies.

They have amassed a catalog of more than 2,000 films and other ephemera and 800 items have been meticulously documented in a spread sheet for the public to explore and available to watch right now. The collection is carefully preserved in climate-controlled storage in the living room of their Palm Springs home. They even have a small refrigerator for at-risk materials.

The films themselves are a treasure trove of local history. One segment features an Indio family who were involved with the Lions Club of Indio and owned Valley Auto Supply at the corner of Requa Avenue and Flower Street. The family’s last name is not known, but they were able to identify other civically-minded Indio residents including Elmer and Alice Suski.

Another highlight is footage from Nancy Moore, who captured the last float the Date Festival entered into the Rose Parade. The magic of these screenings, however, often happens in the audience.

“People LOVE this stuff,” they said. During a 2024 screening, an attendee named Vera Zaffis actually recognized herself on screen in a decades-old parade. He called the moment, a dream come true.”

Even people with no connection to the region or to the families in the home movies end up captivated watching the footage. “I know a lot of this has to do with the context we provide, but the material itself is just so amazing.”

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Check out Deserted Films website here. Buy tickets for the Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival online here.

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