Over a century ago, filmmakers Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon roamed Britain and Ireland filming the everyday lives of people at work and play. For around 70 years, 800 rolls of this early nitrate film sat in sealed barrels in the basement of a shop in Blackburn. Miraculously discovered and painstakingly restored by the BFI, this now ranks as the most exciting film discovery of recent times.
Mitchell & Kenyon in Ireland is a unique and vivid record of Ireland at the start of the twentieth century. The Mitchell & Kenyon collection contains some 26 films made in Ireland between May 1901 and December 1902 in association with three travelling film exhibitors – the North American Animated Photo Company, the Thomas Edison Animated Photo Company and fairground showman George Green. Much of this material has been unseen for over 100 years.
Presented as 'Local Films for Local People', the films include street scenes of Dublin, Wexford and Belfast, local dignitaries attending the Cork International Exhibition, scenic routes from Cork to Blarney Castle and much more.
The DVD is programmed by Dr Vanessa Toulmin of the National Fairground Archive at the University of Sheffield Library, author of the BFI book Electric Edwardians: The Films of Mitchell & Kenyon (2006) and editor of The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon: Edwardian Britain on Film (BFI, 2004).
Extras
Commentary written by Dr Vanessa Toulmin and read by Fiona Shaw
New musical score by Neil Brand and Gunter Buchwald, internationally renowned composers of music to accompany silent films
The DVD also contains an 18-page illustrated booklet with an introduction by Dr Vanessa Toulmin and film notes on Street Scenes, Life in Cork, The Cork Exhibition and Sport
