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Film festival makes a Charlie Chaplin timeline by turning its Instagram feed sideways

Film festival makes a Charlie Chaplin timeline by turning its Instagram feed sideways

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Toronto Silent Film Festival Charlie Chaplin Instagram
Toronto Silent Film Festival Charlie Chaplin Instagram

Charlie Chaplin now has a home on Instagram. To mark the 100th anniversary of the legendary silent era star's first film appearance, the Toronto Silent Film Festival (TSFF) has made unique use of Instagram to make a timeline of Chaplin's life. Instead of limiting itself to just one square Instagram photo or video, Cossette — the marketing agency behind the festival — turned the entire TSFF Instagram feed into a scrolling timeline.

The TSFF Instagram feed reads horizontally, and a mixture of still images, text, blank squares, and short clips from Chaplin's films fill in the timeline. Shirley Hughes, a festival director involved with the project, tells The Verge that "we are very happy to contribute to [the Chaplin Centennial] both through this time-machine and through our festival programming." She adds that the timeline was limited solely to Instagram since Vine's six second time limit was too short for the clips they wanted to include. If you want to check it out yourself, be sure to use your smartphone — the timeline doesn't work at all on Instagram's desktop site. The film festival itself runs April 3rd through 8th in Toronto.