Flatpack Festival
Film for all the senses

Dickens Before Sound

Thursday 15th March, 2012

Birmingham and Midland Institute | 16:00

A selection of Dickens screen adaptations from the silent era, including the first ever filmed version of Oliver Twist.

There is some debate as to the date and the location of Birmingham’s first film screening. Some claim that the Curzon Hall was the first venue for the ‘flickers’ in 1901 with Birmingham film showman (and 2009 Flatpack patron saint) Waller Jeffs startling audiences with scenes of local factory-gate turnouts, sporting events, parades and the like. Others suggest that it was the Corbett-Fitzsimmons fight screened a year earlier that was Brum’s moving picture premiere. One of the other venues in the running though, is the Birmingham and Midland Institute (B.M.I). Founded by the Act of Parliament in 1854, the B.M.I. is a grand old building and houses two charming theatre spaces, The John Lee, and The Lyttelton; Film Bug will be screening in both of them.

One of the B.M.I’s earliest presidents was Charles Dickens and with 2012 being the bicentennial of Mr Dickens, we thought it only right to celebrate the great author’s birthday in a building he was particularly fond of. We’ll be presenting a selection of Dickens screen adaptations from the silent era, including the first ever filmed version of Oliver Twist (1909, dir. J Stuart Blackton), and Scrooge (aka Marley's Ghost) (1901, dir. W R Booth) photographed a mere thirty-one years after the author's death. Each of the films are presented with new scores by Neil Brand (see Another Fine Mess for more on Mr Brand).

This screening is part of Film Bug, a festival within a festival which takes over venues across the Colmore district of the city centre from 14-16 March.

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