Emil Sieurin was a reputed Swedish engineer, employed by the famous Höganäs manufacturer of ceramics and bricks in the South of Sweden (he even invented a new method for the extraction of iron) and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (Kungl. Ingenjörsvetenskapsakademien). During a visit to Paris at the turn of the last century, he acquired 19 films from Gaumont. The films included fiction as well as non-fiction titles, of which many depicted the Paris World Expo in 1900. He also bought a Gaumont camera, and in 1901 he shot images of work and leisure in his hometown of Höganäs, as well as some public events in the bigger, cities of Helsingborg and Malmö nearby. With his images of factories and both workers’ and the bourgeoisie’s everyday life, he became a pioneer in Swedish filmmaking, creating some of the first moving images of non-celebrities. His nitrate reels and equipment seem to have been deposited with the Museum of Science and Technology (of which Sieurin was a member) in the late 1920s – that is before the museum began housing the collections of Svenska Filmsamfundet (the origins of the collections of the Swedish Film Institute), which was founded in 1933. Investigations by historians so far indicate that neither the Gaumont reel nor the Swedish footage were screened in public. It is a well-known fact that scientific figures took an interest in modernity and the new media. One can for instance think of Antonino Sagarmínaga, an industrialist who acquired films to screen in a cultural society in Bilbao, and whose collection is held at Filmoteca Española. Films screened in private or in closed societies, and not acquired for public screening, constitute an interesting and relevant part of early cinema history, and Sieurin is a fascinating figure in this context, as he also shot films himself. Jon Wengström,

Camille Blot-Wellens

Entrée et sortie de la mine; Paris: Exposition Universelle – Panorama de la Seine (1900); Danse des saisons: l’hiver, danse de la neige (1900); Au cabaret (1899); Paris: Exposition universelle (1900); Chez le maréchalferrant (1899); Avenue de l’Opéra (1900); La bonne absinthe (1900); L’Aveugle fin de siècle (1898, regia: G. Breteau); Panorama circulaire sur le Pont d’Iéna (1900); Chapellerie et charcuterie mécaniques (1900); La Fée aux choux (1900); Pédiluve (1899); La Concierge (1900); Chez le photographe (1900, regia: Henri Vallouy); Expo 1900: le vieux Paris (1900); Charge à la baïonette d’un régiment de ligne (1899); Dans les mines: entrée des bennes dans la mine (1899); Danse serpentine (1900)