Film collector Nyback puts Marylhurst in festival business

Marylhurst University film festival continues through Sunday

By Cliff Newell

The Lake Oswego Review, May 6, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Dennis Nyback stands by some of the stacks of his amazing 7,000 film collection, now archived at Marylhurst University.

CLIFF NEWELL / Lake Oswego Review

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When Marylhurst University officials asked Dennis Nyback if he could be the curator for the Oregon Sesquicentennial Film Festival, his answer was instantaneous.

“I said, ‘Could I? I’d love to!’” Nyback said.

After all, without Nyback, along with his wife Anne Richardson, there would not be any film festival this week.

It was Nyback who agreed to line up the films for the festival’s 10-day run, and it was Richardson who lined up the big names who agreed to appear at the festival — James Ivory, Gus Van Sant, Mike Rich and Bill Plympton.

“Anne’s vision was getting the guests,” Nyback said. “Mine was getting the films.”

All of the films in the festival, which concludes on Sunday, have a strong Oregon connection, and the variety is incredible — ranging from silent classics to animation to home movies of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary.

It’s a story that could only happen in the movies. Two years ago, Nyback needed a place to store his giant film collection and Marylhurst discovered it didn’t have quite enough money in its building project to tear down Villa Maria Hall and put in a new road. The timing was perfect.

Thus, Nyback had a place to archive his films. All 7,000 of them.

However, such happy happenstance is pretty common in the career of Dennis Nyback.

His life in films began when he started working his way through the University by Washington by being a film projectionist, and his only goal was to earn a few bucks, not get ready for a career.

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