Title and statement of responsibility area
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Ely Bronstein Fonds
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Physical description
0.62 m of textual records. -- 530 photographs. --- 503 slides. -- 33 audio cassettes. -- 12 VHS cassettes.
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Archival description area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Ely Bronstein was born on November 8, 1945 as one of the many Western foreigners in Shanghai at that time, known as “Shanghailanders”. Fearing the Chinese Communists’ anti-Western policies after their victory in 1949, the Bronstein family left the country, coming to Winnipeg in 1952, where Ely was first exposed to the 1937 Frank Capra film starring Ronald Colman, “Lost Horizon”. The movie struck a chord with Ely, speaking to his own spiritual beliefs as well as serving as a reminder of his Far Eastern heritage, and igniting his lifetime fascination with film and the film industry. Graduating with an Arts Degree in anthropology from the University of Manitoba in 1970, Bronstein retained his love of film, particularly with “Lost Horizon” and began his collection in 1982, assembling articles, documents, correspondences, photos, and artwork relating to the film, as well as others that stuck with him, such as the 1956 film, “Helen of Troy”. Finally deciding his collection would be better off serving the needs of film studies students, Bronstein donated the vast majority of his collection to the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections in 2011.
Custodial history
The accession was donated by Ely Bronstein in 2012.
Scope and content
The fonds consists of 895 items, most of the materials are photocopies of articles, documents, correspondences, photo groups or production stills that have been acquired from various magazines, newspapers, books, other film buffs. The vast majority of the collection relates to “Lost Horizon”, with a much smaller focus on the writer of the novel, James Hilton, and the star of the film Ronald Colman and some on film producer Frank Capra. The fonds is divided into the series Correspondences about the “Lost Horizon”, “Lost Horizon” biographies about James Hilton and Ronald Colman, "Lost Horizon” production photos, The "Lost Horizon" articles series contains newspaper, magazine and journal articles, as well as book excerpts, related to various "Lost Horizon" subjects, such as production, reception, cast and crew biographies and articles discussing James Hiltons other works. The visual media related to “Lost Horizon” has films based on other works by James Hilton or starring Ronald Colman, there is also information on Frank Capra’s life and the American film institute awards ceremony from 1984 that Capra won an award from. The audio associated to “Lost Horizon” series contains various primary sources such as interviews, theatre programs, soundtracks, prayers, and news reports. The next series contain photographs of “Lost Horizon”, production photos – pictures taken of the production processes or of members of the production crew, there is also stills taken of the and slides that were the originals for the stills from the movie. These slides also contain other stills from the movie along with production photos, advertising and publicity stills. All oversized items requiring larger boxes are included in the oversized items series.
Notes area
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Language and script note
English
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Inventory prepared by Dana Van Aert Pattrosson
Finding aid encoded by Dana Van Aert Pattrosson
December 12, 2012