The Kennington Bioscope is a regular cinema event featuring live accompaniment to silent films that takes place at the Cinema Museum.

Tonight’s programme dedicated to David Shepard, who died in January. He worked tirelessly to discover and preserve lost films through his work for the American Film Institute, and then through his own company, Film Preservation Associates. For more information about this remarkable film preservationist, read Pamela Hutchinson’s Sight & Sound obituary.

Kevin Brownlow will introduce one of the films that David helped preserve. Regeneration (1915), was directed by Raoul Walsh for Fox Film Corporation, and stars Rockliffe Fellowes and Anna Q. Nilsson. The story of a young Irish-American (Fellowes) forced into a life of crime, but ultimately redeemed when he falls for Marie (Nilsson), the film was shot on location on New York’s Lower East Side, and features real prostitutes, gangsters and homeless people as extras. It also features a fire on an excursion ferry, which recalls the General Slocum disaster of 1904, when over 1000 people died – the second worst disaster on US waterways.

In the first half of the programme, Kevin will be talking about David’s work with illustrative extracts, including outtakes from D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915).

Anyone interested in silent film should visit the website for more info.

Tickets & Pricing

£5. Seats are limited, so please request an invitation using the email kenbioscope@gmail.com.