Lawrence
The BSFFS started as a sort of spin-off from the British Silent Film Festival which had run at Nottingham and then Leicester since around 1998. The festival was once a mixture of films and academic papers, but the organisers asked me to run a separate event which emphasised the academic papers,...
Lawrence
The British Silent Film Festival Symposium 2026 will take place on Friday 10th April at the Cinema Museum in Kennington. As usual, this one day event will feature a range of papers of original research on all areas of film culture in Britain and areas affected by British colonialism before...
Lawrence
‘It’s coming on Christmas, they’re cutting down trees.’ Do you know that Joni Mitchell song? ‘I wish I had a river I could skate away on?’ It’s such a sad song, and not really about Christmas at all, but I was thinking about it tonight as I was decorating my Christmas tree and unwrapping funky...
Lawrence
Recalling the early days of cinema in Newcastle, Kinematograph Weekly noted that in 1906 there was only one film renter in the city, and that was George Henderson.[1] As I discussed in an earlier post, Henderson was already almost 50 when he entered the film business, showing animated pictures as...
Lawrence
Here is George Henderson. See how he stands triumphantly atop the Red Lion pub sign, which has been dashed to the ground and lies shattered beneath his feet? In its place he has erected the sign of an alternative recreational pleasure – sober, rational and aspirational – the Picture Theatre. His...