BACK IN BO’NESS!

Guest Speaker Rob Byrne, President of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival Board and reknowned restorer of silent films brought an international flavour to FAUK’s Meet the Archives event as part of the Hippfest programme in March. Along with FAUK Member speakers and archivists Matt Lee from the Imperial War Museum, Sue Howard of Yorkshire and the North East Film Archives and Dr Frank Gray from Brighton University based Screen Archive South East, the audience heard more about the restoration and creative re-use of archive film, comparing notes across the pond. The event was held in Bo’ness Library with thanks to Hippfest Director, Alison Strauss.

A selection of clips were shown from Peter Jackson’s ‘They Shall Not Grow Old’. Matt Lee shared some special stories behind the IWM’s work with such a passionate and talented Director and the tremendous time and work involved in the film production and the colourisation of the WW1 footage featured in the film which has reached such a wide audience in cinema and on TV and dvd since its release in 2018.

Sue Howard presented clips from the female-centred archive short Born a Rebel (2018) commissioned by Cinema for All and featuring archives from Yorkshire, North East and North West Film Archives. The film was made in response to the lack of women’s voices in the archives and featured stories of rebellion, stories of bravery and stories of women who aren’t waiting for permission to take what they want.

The event culminated in a Q&A session with enthusiastic participation from the audience

Earlier in the day FAUK held their Quarterly Meeting at the Richmond Park Hotel overlooking the Firth of Forth. It was Chaired for the first time by Clare Watson

There was time to wind down in the evening with a meal at the Pier Pizzaz restaurant where former Head of of Scotland’s Moving Image & Sound Collections and FAUK Member, Ruth Watson, was presented with a surprise card from FAUK Members to thank her for all her years of work with the film archive and in recognition of all her passion and hard work behind the masterminding of the successful move of Scotland’s Moving Image archive into it’s state of the art new home in Kelvin Hall, Glasgow.

The evening continued with the Hippfest screening of Laila at the iconic Hippodrome in the town. An epic-scaled romantic drama Directed by George Schneevoigt, Norwich 1929 and accompanied by award-winning Norwegian/Scottish folk duo Marit and Rona performing on violin, fiddle, mandola and hardingfele