LONG LOST FILMS TO BE SHOWN IN WALES
Extraordinary movies of Welsh life lost for nearly 100 years will be screened in Wales this week (Friday 6th May).
The films -including the oldest surviving footage of an international football game -Wales v Ireland, 1906 - were part of the rich haul of 800 shorts recovered from the premises of Blackburn, Lancashire, screen pioneers Mitchell and Kenyon in the 1990s. Until this Spring the Welsh films had not been shown in their entirety in Wales for a century.
The find changed the whole face of British movie history as the company - M and K - were not considered previously to have been significant filmmakers. These richly atmospheric films also offer a magical portal into the past with their images of factory workers, town processions and celebrations and their 'phantom' tram ride films with the camera placed aboard vehicles travelling through city and town centres, generally in the north of England and north Midlands.
A recent BBC 2 Electric Edwardians series of three TV documentaries, following a four year restoration project by the British Film Institute, has boosted M and K to their rightful status as priceless and ingenious pioneers who have given modern viewers their greatest insight yet into how life was lived in the early 20th century. A book and DVD of M and K's British collection has been issued but the DVD includes none of the Welsh films which are fascinating and compelling in their own right.
These shorts will be shown free of charge by the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales at their own auditorium, the Drwm, in the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, on Friday (7.30pm) A free drinks reception will be held (from 7pm approx ) before the screening of 80 mins. worth of M and K films a package of national material - and 15-20 minutes of the Welsh films.
Welsh- based film historian Dave Berry, who introduces the films at the Drwm, said today: "It should be an engrossing and enchanting evening. The sheer quality of the images drawn from the original black and white negatives is breathtaking and almost all the Welsh material is of great significance, not merely to early film buffs or academics but for historians and all those to whom the early 20th century remains a hugely important period. Who knows? Some people who attend may also see long dead relatives on screen or people who were workmates of their loved ones. These films are professionally made - and very poignant.
"I hope some of the students in the Aberystwyth area will take this unique opportunity to see these films on the big screen - I think they will be shocked by how remarkably beautiful they are and it will also help them grasp the techniques of early filmmaking. Mitchell and Kenyon did not consider themselves to be artists. They professed to be principally interested in crowding the screen with people so they could advertise the films with 'See Yourself as Others See You' - type slogans, but they were clearly very skilled professionals who made many of their films for the showmen of the day.".
The 1906 international film, a 4-4 draw between Wales and Ireland at the Racecourse, Wrexham, is remarkable in that it captures four goals, perhaps more than any other film of the period - given the limitations on camera footage then. It also features perhaps the first soccer injury captured on screen It seems quaint today to see the players enter the pitch by climbing over a bench and all the match officials in caps.
The great Welsh international winger Billy Meredith, of Manchester United and Manchester City fame, missed the match because he'd been suspended -facing a match-fixing charge!
The soccer film completes a rare double for Wales - as the oldest extant soccer footage in the world is the 1898 Blackburn Rovers v West Bromwich Albion film shot by Rhyl's Arthur Cheetham, the first Welsh- based filmmaker.
Other material shown will include a colourful fancy- dress Llandudno May Day Procession of 1907, Royal visits to Bangor and Rhyl in 1902 and early footage of steamships of the Liverpool and North Wales company, plying their holiday trips trade between Liverpool and the Menai Straits and Holyhead.
Tickets can be obtained from the Drwm Box Office on 01970-632548