French Sundaes: La Bataille du Rail (1946) & Amnesty Tower Hamlets Group Presents To Kill A Mockingbird Sun 16th, Kennington Bioscope - Back To God’s Country Wed 19th, South Social Film screening of Wild Tales Thu 20th &
The 2nd Kennington Bioscope Silent Comedy Weekend
Sat 22nd - Sun 23rd plus She Could Be Chaplin!: The Comedic Brilliance of Alice Howell by Anthony Slide
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French Sundaes: La Bataille du Rail (1946) Sun 16th Oct 14:30
The theme this season is the ‘The Cinema of Resistance’.
La Bataille du Rail (The Battle of the Rails) is a 1946 war movie directed by René Clément which tells the courageous efforts by French railway workers to sabotage German troop transport trains.
A themed talk from Jon Davies will precede the screening.
Doors open at 14.00, for a 14.30 start.
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Amnesty Tower Hamlets Group Presents To Kill A Mockingbird
Sun 16th Oct 17:15
The Amnesty Tower Hamlets group campaigns for human rights around the world. The group invites you to a screening of the classic film To Kill A Mockingbird (1962), based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by the late Harper Lee and starring Gregory Peck, who won an Oscar for his performance. A tale about race prejudice in the American south, this film shines a light on injustices that we are still fighting today. Funds raised go to Amnesty International UK, helping us to continue campaigning for human rights.
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Kennington Bioscope PresentsBack To God’s Country (1919)
Wed 19th Oct 19:30
A screening of Girl From God’s Country(2014), a documentary about silent film writer, director, and star, Nell Shipman will be followed by her film Back To God’s Country (1919). In 1922 she came to Idaho’s Priest Lake from Hollywood, with a personal zoo of animal performers, refusing the assured trappings of a studio contract with Samuel Goldfish (soon to be Goldwyn) to produce her own films on location.
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The film reveals the forgotten legacy of Shipman and a generation of female silent film pioneers. Geena Davis and female directors discuss gender-inequities Nell and her counterparts faced that perpetuate in today’s film industry.
In Back To God’s Country (1919), directed by David Hartford, Nell plays a woman who finds herself all alone in a remote harbour with the man responsible for the murder of her father. With seemingly nobody around to protect her, she has to be resourceful.
Doors open at 6:30pm for a 7:30pm start. Entrance is £4, £3 of which goes to the Museum. If you would like to come along then please email us at kenbioscope@gmail.com to request seats. (Please supply a name and email for each seat reserved please.) |
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South Social Film screening ofWild Tales (2014) Thu 20th Oct 18:00
Get into subversive mood and embrace out-of-control behaviour with these six short tales of everyday Argentinean madness. Produced by Pedro Almodóvar, Wild Tales opens and closes with a bang, and is a riotously funny and cathartic exorcism of the frustrations of contemporary life. A black comedy delight!
The screening will be followed by live Argentinean music. Delicious regional catering will be served throughout the event.
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Second Kennington Bioscope Silent Comedy Weekend
Sat/Sun 22nd/23rd Oct 10:00
The Kennington Bioscope Silent Comedy Weekend returns with two days worth of Eddie Cantor, Clara Bow, Harold Lloyd, Max Linder, Monty Banks, Syd Chaplin, Harry Langdon and many more!
All films are accompanied by thigh slapping, howling, foot stamping with a generous side salad of great music by our world famous accompanists John Sweeney, Costos Fotopoulos, Neil Brand, Stephen Horne, Cyrus Gabrysch and Lillian Henley.
Our guest speakers are expected to include renowned authors David Robinson, Geoff Brown and Brent Walker, legendary film archivist Bob Gitt and, of course, our own Kevin Brownlow.
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She Could Be Chaplin!: The Comedic Brilliance of Alice Howell by Anthony Slide
Alice Howell (1886–1961) is slowly gaining recognition and regard as arguably the most important slapstick comedienne of the silent era. This new study identifies her place in the comedy hierarchy alongside the best-known of silent comediennes, Mabel Normand. Like Normand, Howell learned her craft with Mack Sennett and Charlie Chaplin. Beginning her screen career in 1914, Howell quickly developed a distinctive style and eccentric attire and mannerisms, successfully hiding her good looks, and was soon identified as the “Female Charlie Chaplin.”
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Howell became a star of comedy shorts in 1915 and continued her career through 1928 and the advent of sound in film. While she is today recognized as a pioneering female filmmaker, during her career she never expressed much interest in her work, seeing it only as a means to an end, with her income carefully invested in real estate. It has taken many years for her to gain her rightful place in film history, not only as a comedienne, but also as matriarch of a prominent American family that includes son-in-law and director George Stevens and grandson George Stevens Jr., founder of the American Film Institute and the Kennedy Center Honors, who provides a foreword.
Over the past forty-five years, Anthony Slide, Studio City, California, has written and edited more than two hundred books on the history of popular entertainment. He is a pioneer in the documentation of women in silent film, writing the first biography of Lois Weber, editing the memoirs of Alice Guy Blaché, and authoring the first study of women silent film directors. Lillian Gish called him “our preeminent film historian of the silent era.” Published on September 30th. |
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