Other activities

  Through Brooklyn film historian Martin Sopocy, the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and horticultural societies we arranged a planting of the lilac variety 'Blanche Sweet' in Kennington Park, London to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of silent film star Blanche Sweet (top left, 1896 - 1986) who began her long acting career aged 13 in D.W. Griffith's early films. The planting, attended by the Mayor of Lambeth, was performed by 91 year old Joan Morgan (1905 - 2004) Britain's oldest silent film actress (seen top and left, sitting), who herself began in films aged 8 years in her director father Sidney Morgan's productions, made in the seaside studios at Bungalow Town, Shoreham, along the coast from Brighton, Sussex.
Regrettably the copper plate with information about the lilac was stolen within weeks of the planting, but the lilac (pictured below in September 2007) can be seen in the Rose Garden, Kennington Park. It blossoms with a pale blue flower, the colour of Blanche Sweet's eyes.
 


Gloria Stuart (born 1910), a leading film star in the 1930s came to visit us at the Fire Station and is seen here discussing her memories of working with the director James Whale. Gloria told us she was signed to appear in a forthcoming Titanic film.

After this visit she appeared to great acclaim in James Cameron's 'Titanic' (1997) for which she received an Oscar nomination. One of our directors Ronald Grant spoke to her at the Oscar ceremony, where she was up for Best Supporting Actress and she asked after everyone at the Museum. Here she is with Bill Paxton and Suzy Amis in a scene from the film.


The small cinema we created at the Old Firestation where we had regular screenings.

The cinema in the Master's House again is fully equipped with dual 35mm and 16mm professional cinema projectors.


Home Movie Day organiser Guy Edmonds preparing some films for screening.		  

Many people attending home movie day brought along their family home movies. This was a very fine collection of 9.5mm films.


The presentation of the Haghefilm prize to the Cinema Museum at the Pordenone silent film festival for a group of the Mitchell and Kenyon fiction films from 1899-1906.

The museum administrator Martin Humphries in Amsterdam during our collaboration with other European archives. The result was the creation of a video and DVD named Exotic Europe, about travel in Europe shown in early film. A number of the museum's films are featured, there is a section about film restoration and it can be purchased from the address at the end of this website for £18. The DVD is trilingual with the choice of a commentary in English, Dutch and German.


David Clevland and Jane Alvey of the East Anglian film archive at the University of East Anglia. Visiting us with a group of students from their archiving course, they found a catalogue here of an early Colchester pageant. They have a film of this event.

Filmmakers use our period decor as atmospheric background when shooting film related programmes.


The researcher and historian Tony Fletcher showing Peter Reeves and his daughter photos from our box of personal effects of the actress Renee Adoree. Peter was a nephew of the 1920's and 1930's MGM star.

Tony also prepared a paper based on his researches, for the early film group Domitor's conference at the Librayry of Congress Washington DC. As he was unable to travel, Ronald Grant read the paper on his behalf.
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