Monday 26 October 2015

BFI showcases cinema's lost gems at England's rail stations

A heaving seaside promenade harks back to Blackpool's heyday, while footage of a Victorian-era street scene features moustachioed men traipsing streets teeming with horses pulling carts. These are among the forgotten gems recently unearthed by the British Film Institute (BFI) being beamed on to the screens of some of England's busiest railway stations.
Still from Terminus
Scenes from the award-winning film Terminus are being screened at stations across the country


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Newsreels, advertisements, home movies and forgotten TV programmes are now on show at stations across the country, including in Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and London, as part of the BFI's "Britain on Film" heritage project.
Still from film on LondonImage copyrightBFI
Image captionA snapshot of London in the 1920s features scenes from the streets of Soho and the Limehouse district
The moving pictures depict vanished landscapes, urban and rural communities and people at work and play.
In one piece of archive footage from 1904, a pair of trams packed with holidaymakers pauses on Blackpool's promenade before cutting to a shot of the bustling Victoria Pier, where people in their Sunday best stare with curiosity into the camera's lens.