On Sunday the 15th of March the Hyde Park Picture House, in collaboration with the University’s Centre for World Cinemas, are screening three landmark documentary films from the archive of the British Film Institute.
The British Documentary Movement was one of the most fertile periods in British cinema history. Beginning in the 1930s, a group of young, talented and enthusiastic filmmakers developed and promoted the use of film to tell real stories about real people. In doing so they helped to shape and define what came to be known as the documentary film, and between them they produced a remarkable array of non-fiction films documenting all aspects of British life and industry.
The Hyde Park Picture House are screening three emblematic films from this extraordinary period: Drifters (1929), Housing Problems (1935), and Night Mail (1936). Andy Moore, a PhD student at the University of Leeds specialising in documentary film, will provide a short introduction to the screening.
Established in 1914, the Hyde Park Picture House is one of the UK’s oldest cinemas. It screens independent, art house and classic films from around the world as well as regularly hosting special events and live music.
From ‘Drifters’ to ‘Night Mail’: The British Documentary Movement is on Sunday the 15th of March at 1pm, with free entry for Leeds University students. Tickets from £4.60 are available through the venue’s website, www.hydeparkpicturehouse.co.uk or can be booked via the box office on 0113 275 2045.
Andrew Moore
Image: Drifters (Dir. John Grierson, 1929) BFI