Deserted Films

Deserted Films is an archive in Palm Springs that collects, preserves, and digitizes historically significant home movies and other rare films depicting the Coachella Valley and Southern California more broadly. We educate the public through presentations of these films online and in-person. We do not sell stock footage. All donations, stipends for presentations, and ticket sales for our fundraiser shows go towards our film preservation efforts benefiting researchers, students, and other local nonprofits with whom we collaborate.

Drs. Melissa Dollman and Devin Orgeron founded Deserted Films in Palm Springs in 2021 and incorporated as a nonprofit in July 2022. In 2023, it was federally recognized as a 501(c)(3). A bit about us: We collect, care for and make accessible films shot in the general Palm Springs region -- by locals and tourists -- during that golden age of nontheatrical film from the 1920s-1980s when 16mm, 8mm, Super 8 celluloid film and video cameras (instead of our phones!) were the tools we used to preserve our memories. The collection also houses a fair bit of footage of Southern California, generally, and our surrounding desert regions. If a film documents a historical event (or historically under-represented peoples), we grab it too. To date, our archive consists of over 2,000 films (500+ are digitized and on our website), and we have presented educational -- and entertaining we think! -- programs to audiences in the Coachella Valley at such venues as: Palm Springs Cultural Center, Palm Springs Public Library, Modernism Week, Maleza, Rotary Club of Indio, and The Mizell Center (December 2025). We have also contributed footage to the "Section 14" exhibit at the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum, and created a curated video documenting the Date Festival during the 1930s-1970s for the forthcoming new National Date Festival Museum at Riverside County Fair & National Date Festival (2026). Most recently we had an information table at the Coachella Valley Filipino Festival (11/22) to help folks think through personal archiving needs -- home movies and otherwise. 

Testimonials

For their August 2024 issue, Palm Springs Life magazine did a feature on us! See the front page of our website for a link, or search for us on theirs: palmspringslife.com. Our holiday shows at the Palm Springs Cultural Center have made the Palm Springs Post's holiday guide for the past three years.