CCFF presents The Daughter of Dawn Silent Film Screening with live improvisational piano music by Dr. Larry Schanker

Sunday, Mar. 23 | 4:00pm ET (3:00pm CT)

Coastline Children’s Film Festival returns to The Acorn presenting The Daughter of Dawn Silent Film Screening with live improvisational piano music by Dr. Larry Schanker. Free to attend! Tickets are not required.

The Daughter of Dawn 1920 USA 83 min 6+

Shot in 1920 in the Wichita Mountains of southwest Oklahoma with a cast entirely made up of members of the Comanche and Kiowa tribes, The Daughter of Dawn screened publicly only twice before disappearing without a trace for nearly a century. Rediscovered and restored, this large-scale vision of Comanche and Kiowa life is a revelation. The story, played by a sprawling cast of three hundred Native Americans, includes a romantic rivalry, buffalo hunts, a battle, village scenes, dances, deceit, courage, hand-to-hand combat, and even a happy ending. The Indigenous actors, who in 1920 had been living on reservations for less than sixty years, brought with them their own tipis, horses, clothing, and material culture. Subtly acted, beautifully photographed, and directed without melodrama by Norbert A. Myles, this nearly lost landmark stands with the best films of the period.

Dr. Larry Schanker

Larry Schanker has been writing music for theatre, film, dance and the concert hall for almost 35 years. Most recently, he was guest soloist for the world premiere of his Concerto for Jazz Piano, performed by the Southwest Michigan Symphony Orchestra at the Mendel Center in Benton Harbor, MI. Dr. Schanker’s theatrical underscoring runs the gamut from Shakespeare to Chekhov, to comedy at the Second City in Chicago. He wrote the music for the Goodman Theatre’s production of A Christmas Carol for fifteen years, performing the score live for nine of those years. He has applied the same techniques to the accompaniment of silent film, most recently at Indiana University Cinema, where he accompanied a 1920 Hamlet, and at Notre Dame, where he was commissioned to write a score for piano and harp for the 1924 version of Peter Pan, which premiered in the summer of 2010 and was reprised for the 2012 CCFF film festival. At the Citadel Dance Center in Benton Harbor, MI, Dr. Schanker has composed music for ballet, jazz, and modern dance. Most recently, the Southwest Michigan Symphony Orchestra (SMSO) collaborated with Dr. Schanker to create a unique composition that brought the SMSO together in concert with the drumlines of Benton Harbor High School and the Boys & Girls Club of Benton Harbor.

Dr. Schanker holds a Bachelor of Music and a Masters in Composition from Northwestern University, where he studied with Lynden DeYoung and Alan Stout, and a Ph.D. in Music Composition from the University of Chicago, where he studied with John Eaton and Shulamit Ran. His other passion is Montessori education, and he has been teaching at Brookview Montessori School in Benton Harbor for the past 22 years, where he designed a composition-based music program. He now serves as Brookview’s Executive Director. Larry lives in Saint Joseph, Michigan.

About Coastline Children’s Film Festival:

The mission of the Coastline Children’s Film Festival is to offer quality, independent films and animation to kids of all ages to Berrien County. Presenting them to families and the community on the big screen creates a shared, theatrical experience. CCFF’s anchor event is a 10-day, annual March film festival presented at locations throughout SW Michigan and NW Indiana. Additional indoor and outdoor screenings throughout the summer and Halloween round out the year.

In addition, CCFF sees educational opportunities as central to its mission. Alongside the screening of features, documentaries, and short programs, festival participants have the opportunity to learn about the history of cinema and the craft of filmmaking through hands-on workshops and filmmaker presentations.