Lyrical Nitrate was the first of several found footage films that Peter Delpeut made from the Jean Desmet collection of EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. Desmet worked in every area of the film industry between 1907 and 1916 - the period in which narrative films became increasingly sophisticated and transitioned from small theaters housing a few people to ever-expanding movie palaces - and he preserved tinted nitrate prints of many of the films he distributed. Delpeut reworked the material into a rich montage that is as illuminating as it is moving. Lyrical Nitrate makes clear that the presence of color and even signs of decay deepen the phantasmagoric experience of motion in early cinema. Subtitles available.