News Releases

UWF Historic Trust to host documentary screening and presentation on stamp collecting

The University of West Florida Historic Trust, in conjunction with Pensacola Cinema Art, will host a screening of “Freaks and Errors,” a feature-length documentary about postage stamps, collectors and the lifelong quest for the obscure. The screening and presentation will be held on Feb. 8 at 5:30 p.m. at the Voices of Pensacola, 117 East Government Street. The event is free and open to the public.

The screening of the film, which includes interviews with columnist and author Neil Steinberg, footwear guru Stuart Weitzman, “bond king” Bill Gross and an enthusiastic collection of lifelong stamp hobbyists, is a commentary on how people search for ways to make order out of chaos, connect with one another and express their passions.

The screening will be followed by a presentation by Calvin Mitchell, assistant curator of philately at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. Mitchell is a past recipient of the Smithsonian Institution’s distinguished calvin-mitchell-1secretary’s award for the philatelic exhibition “Freedom Just Around the Corner: Black America from Civil War to Civil Rights.” He is a member of several philatelic organizations, including the American First Day Cover Society, American Ceremony Program Society, Military Postal History Society, Ebony Society of Philatelic Events and Reflections and  American Philatelic Society.

The screening and presentation complement the exhibit “Philately & Friendship: The Art of ACE” on view at the T.T. Wentworth, Jr. Museum through Feb. 27. The exhibit features 50 illustrated envelopes, as well as pages of personal correspondence, created by members of the Art Cover Exchange, also known as ACE. The postal art included in the exhibition was sent by ACE members around the work to fellow member and local artist Manuel Runyan during the 1930s and 1940s.

For more information, visit historicpenscola.org or 850.595.5985.

For more information on the “Freaks and Errors” film, visit www.freaksanderrorsfilm.com.