Small-town filmmaker's nationally recognized production can now be viewed online

The National Film Registry of the Library of Congress recently announced its 25 additions for 2009, and at the same time a short film added to the list last year became available for viewing online. "Our Day" made in 1938 by Wallace Kelly of rural Lebanon, Ky., left, is a silent, 12-minute movie about a day in his household.

We reported on the film in an item last Jan. 10. Last week, Kentucky Educational Television did a story about it and, with permission of the filmmaker's daughter, Martha Kelly, posted the film on its Web site. To watch it, click here. For KET's page about the movie, click here.

The film gained national attention through Home Movie Day, an annual event held in New York and other cities. It was praised for its sophisticated staging, lighting, camera work and editing. Dave Kehr of The New York Times, a member of the National Film Preservation Board, which picked the movies, called Kelly's picture "extraordinary" and said in his personal blog that it "displays a more sophisticated sense of mise-en-scene [staging] than the great majority of current Hollywood features."