This beautiful shot film was long thought to be lost but has been preserved thanks to the efforts of Nick Wilding who discovered it in an archive in Canada and fought for its preservation. Previous showings have been sold out!

Full details about the festival are here

Come and find out about your town’s history Come to a film show and talk on Tuesday 22nd March 2011 from 7.30 to 9pm Hear about Cecil Hepworth, the pioneer of British cinema, who created many early films at his studio in Hurst Grove, Walton. Hear about the Old Library and our plans for it’s long-term future At St Andrew’s United Reform Church Hall, Hersham Road, Walton KT12 1LG Several speakers will be presenting talks on Hepworth and his films together with a showing of some of the famous silents that made his name. This enjoyable event is another opportunity for you to get involved in the campaign.

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]]> webmaster@hepworthfilm.org Fri, 18 Mar 2011 22:42:43 GMT 994977CC-886C-4352-9A60-3184D9FCB491 http://www.hepworthfilm.org A letter from Andrew Sturgis, who is leading the campaign for the Hepworth Centre in Walton, was published in the Independent on Tuesday, 25 January 2011

The text reads:

Hollywood UK

To supplement Oliver Bennett's article about Britain's Beverly Hills (21 January), Walton-on-Thames, Elmbridge's largest town, was Britain's own Hollywood in the early 20th century. Cecil Hepworth, a great pioneer of the British film industry, had his film studio in Walton from as early as 1896. Your readers may be interested to know that steps are currently in hand to create a film and visual arts centre in Walton in memory of Cecil Hepworth.

Andrew Sturgis

Walton-on-Thames

You can read it here

]]> webmaster@hepworthfilm.org Wed, 26 Jan 2011 02:19:14 GMT C4BE1CEC-5207-48FC-93F0-7844346FCFF3 http://www.hepworthfilm.org

D-Day Imminent - Elmbridge Council to decide fate of Hepworth Centre Site on 30th March 2011

In Autumn 2010, 689 people signed a petition asking Elmbridge Council to transform Walton’s old library building into a film and visual arts centre.

This was followed up by a presentation to the Council on 4th November 2010.

Elmbridge Council will decide on 30th March 2011.

HAVE YOUR SAY.

A 692-signature petition has been submitted to Elmbridge Borough Council to support the case to convert the disused Walton Library into a museum commemorating Hepworth and the local cinema industry. It was presented it to the Council on 4th November and it will be considered by the cabinet at 7pm on Wednesday, 24 Nov. 2010 at their meeting at Civic Centre, Esher.

Prompt action is essential to ensure that your views are represented.

If you support this local initiative, please email the head of Elmbridge Council to let him know your views, and attend the meeting to show your support.

This story has been reported in the local press a number of times, recently here.

You can visit hepworthfilm.org to learn how you can join the campaign, or post your views in the Forum.

]]> hepworthfilm.org http://apps.hepworthfilm.org/Forum/ hepworthfilm.org Mon, 22 Nov 2010 00:37:53 GMT 02F10C28-CE1B-4EBB-8D01-C141922DD9D4 Arts Society & Culture TV & Film http://www.hepworthfilm.org Epic Hepworth Silent Film "Helen of Four Gates" gets another screening at Hebden Bridge on 2nd Dec 2010

Hebden Bridge Picture House is showing 'Helen of Four Gates' again on Thursday 2nd December, accompanied by Darius Battiwalla on the same grand piano that he played so beautifully for the first screening for decades, back in June 2010. 

At least six descendants of Ethel Carnie Holdsworth, who wrote the novel on which it is based, will be in the audience. It is a themed evening and people are invited to come dressed in 1920's clothing, this time and quite a few will be coming in poverty-stricken rural 1920's Yorkshire attire to fit in with the subject matter!

]]> Nick Wilding Wed, 10 Nov 2010 18:30:34 GMT 2752B31A-40C5-4691-836C-2A51829B7B42 http://www.hepworthfilm.org Local Opinion grows to support the Walton Visual Arts Centre

Following our previous story on this feed, local opinion has been voiced LOUDLY about of a silent film heritage centre at Walton. Almost 700 people are in favour!

The Film and Visual Arts Centre would be created in memory of Cecil Hepworth who was one of the great pioneers of the British film industry. He set up his studio in Hurst Grove, Walton, at the end of the 19th century and filmed Queen Victoria’s funeral in 1901. He and his successors established Walton as a hub of film production which continued until the 1950s.

Read the full story here in the Surrey Herald.

YOU can add your message about the proposals. Have your say here.

From the Herald and News, 2nd Sept 2010

ELMBRIDGE Council say its considering various options for the former Walton Library building but will not reveal exactly what those are. The Surrey Herald and News put questions to the council regarding the dilapidated building at the junction of High Street and Hersham Road, in Walton, but despite it being empty since 2008 no one would speak about future plans or timescales.

An Elmbridge spokeswoman would only say: "The council is considering various options for this prominent building in Walton."

But a small group of residents have new proposals for the building which could see it transformed into a Film and Visual Arts Centre to celebrate Walton's historic connections with the industry. The group was set up by former county councillor Andrew Sturgis, of West Grove, Walton, and his daughter, Lucinda Sturgis, who has worked in the film industry for 20 years. They emphasise the plans were intended to be flexible and could be adjusted with input from residents. The group will have a stall at Walton Heritage Day, this Saturday, (September 11) by the River Thames, off Manor Road, Walton, in order to promote the proposal and establish support from the public.

• Read the full story here

A century on, the traders of Cecil Court are uniting to explore the heritage of this unique street. Courtesy of the BFI, there will be a screening a number of early films including the first ever film of Alice in Wonderland which was released by Hepworth from 17 Cecil Court in 1903, which will be accompanied by pianist John Sweeney. Film historian Simon Brown will speak about Flicker Alley and the early days of British film and there will be a blue plaque installation throughout the Court showing which film-related businesses were where and when. There will be other themed window displays and events too, including the Tenderflix film screenings, part of the Rushes Soho Shorts festival.

Date: Saturday 24 July 2010 Time: 10am - 8pm

Full details here - http://www.cecilcourt.co.uk/flickeralley.pdf - on the Cecil Court website.

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Courtesy of GoLondon http://golondon.about.com/b/2010/07/18/cecil-courts-flicker-alley-festival.htm

"Helen of Four Gates" has been discovered in a Canadian archive by Nick Wilding and brought back home for its first screening in over 90 years at Hebden Bridge. The film was directed by pioneer of early motion pictures Cecil Hepworth and is based on a novel by former mill girl Ethel Carnie Holdsworth, who lived in Heptonstall in the 1920s. It stars Alma Taylor in the title role.

It will be shown at the Hebden Bridge Picture House on Thursday 10th June 2010.

The British Film Institute will be screening it the following month as a key part of their Lost and Re-discovered Films festival.

Click on the link for more information about this showing.

More information about Cecil Hepworth and his films at hepworthfilm.org.

This was a very difficult restoration due to the extremely poor condition of the remaining fragments of film, as you might expect from a fragile nitrate film over 100 years old that had been kept in poor circumstances for much of its life.

Read all about the restoration process by following the link to the BFI in this story. 

The newly restored film will be publicly available to view on the BFI website www.bfi.org.uk and in BFI Mediatheques around the UK from early March 2010, completely free of charge.

We can't wait to see it! Well done BFI!

There have been numerous film versions made of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, since 1903 when May Clark played the first screen Alice, in the longest film ever made in Britain at the time. It was considered far too long by most distributors, and was cut up into episodes for distribution and screening in the "picture palaces" of the time. (Or was this only a cynical money making ploy? We shall never know.)

Director Cecil Hepworth cast his wife as the White Rabbit, doubling as the Queen, and the 15-year-old May Clark was excused from her duties as studio secretary to star in the film. Local schoolchildren were drafted in to play the Cards and other characters, and the film was shot in the grounds of Mount Felix at Walton On Thames, just round the corner from the Hepworth Studios. Hepworth's version pioneered several new trick shots, as special effects were known at the time. Since this silent premiere of the most famous of all Lewis Carrol stories, many different film versions have appeared, in all kinds of genres.

The latest "Alice" is a fantasy film directed by Tim Burton, combining the Lewis Carroll novels "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass" in a mix of live action and animation. Mia Wasikowska plays the role of Alice, alongside Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as The Red Queen, Anne Hathaway as The White Queen, Crispin Glover as The Knave of Hearts and Stephen Fry as The Cheshire Cat. The plot and screenplay differs somewhat from a pure rendition of the Carrol original!

The film will premiere in London at the Odeon Leicester Square on February 25, 2010. It's good to see this film acknowledging its historic roots. If only Hepworth had included the Jabberwock in his film!

hepworthfilm.org

• Explosion of a Motor Car (1900)
• Hamlet (1913) Closet Scene
• Hamlet (1913) Ghost Scene
• How it feels to be run over (1900)
• The classic Rescued By Rover (1905)