In this great project, an archivist attempts to put together the "lost years" of Eleanor Antinova, the once celebrated black ballerina of Diaghlev's Ballets Russes, when she returned to her native America to eke out a meager living in vaudeville and early movies. Her career in the States is documented through narrative and dance films - recently discovered - which she made back in the Depression, when times were bad, and even ballerinas stooped low. The six short films include comedies, spicy farces, even, alas, a semi-blue movie, along with vaudeville dance numbers and artistic interpretations. Antin has described From the Archives of Modern Art as a documentary fiction.
—Milestone Films