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Film realizado por Annabel Hobley y Emma Hindley en el año 2004.
From 1900 to 1913, film-makers Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon, commissioned by touring showmen, roamed the North of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales filming the everyday lives of people at work and play. For around 70 years, 800 rolls of their early nitrate film sat in sealed barrels in the basement of a local shop in Blackburn. Miraculously discovered by a local businessman and painstakingly restored by the British Film Institute, this ranks as the most exciting film discovery of recent times.
The British Film Institute and the BBC have collaborated on bringing this fascinating material onto the screen with a three-part television series, The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon, beginning broadcast on BBC Two from 14 January at 9pm. Presented by Dan Cruickshank, the series opens up our past and includes interviews with descendents of some of those featured in the footage, who are seeing their ancestors on film for the first time. It also boasts a world exclusive: the first ever film of Manchester United.
In the early 1990s, in the basement of a shop in Blackburn, north England, 800 rolls of nitrate film were found in sealed barrels. These rolls contained early Edwardian films of real people across the North of England, filmed and stored by the Mitchell & Kenyon company. This three part series contains excerpts from these extraordinary films, featuring interviews with ancestors of those pictured, recreations of the life and times of the film-makers, and visits many of the original locations.
Similar to the "actualities" made by the Lumiere brothers, these films were commissioned from the Mitchell & Kenyon company between 1900 and 1913 by touring showmen in the days before purpose-built cinemas. Shot mostly in the North of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, they were advertised as "local films for local people" and screened at town halls, village fetes and local fairs. Providing an unparalleled visual record of Edwardian Britain, the films are a moving testament to the lives of ordinary people at work and play. Electric Edwardians is a special program of highlights from the 28 hours of footage discovered in metal churns in the basement of a photographer's shop in Blackburn, England.
