The sole copy of a 1928 Walt Disney film thought to be lost forever has been rediscovered in the archives of the British Film Institute.
Walt Disney Animation Studios has restored the six-minute silent film, Sleigh Bells, which features Mickey Mouse precursor Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and will premiere next month at the BFI in London.
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The film originally entered the archives 34 years ago, collected from a film lab went out of business, but nothing about the way it was logged—including the fact that it was dated as being from 1931—suggested its historical value. “There must be a hundred things called Sleigh Bells [in the archives],” a BFI spokesman told The Guardian. While browsing the BFI’s online catalog, a researcher looking for lost Disney films made the discovery recognized the title as a possible missing short.
“What a joyful treat to discover a long-lost Walt Disney film in the BFI national archive and to be able to show it to a whole new audience 87 years after it was made,” Robin Baker, the head curator for the BFI National Archive, said in a statement. “The restoration of this film will introduce many audiences to Disney’s work in the silent period.”
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