About this Event
British Silent Film Festival Symposium 2026
A one day event featuring 15 papers presenting the latest research on the history of cinema culture in Britain and its Empire before 1930.
This event functions as a prelude to the KENNINGTON BIOSCOPE SILENT WEEKENDER on Saturday and Sunday (book separately)
Draft timetable (subject to change)
9.00 – 9.30 WELCOME
9.30 – 11.00 SESSION 1
1. Yeadle, Peter – Recruitographs: a history of the war propaganda film
2. Cook, Malcolm – How To Stop Motor Cars: Revisiting the Modernity of Early British Trick Films
3. Slugan, Mario – Daniels’ Early Itinerant Showmanship in the Caribbean
4. Shail, Robert & Shah, Irfan – ‘Cradle of Light: Louis Le Prince and the Technological Aesthetics of Early Cinema’
11.00 – 11 .30 TEA BREAK
11.30 – 1.00 SESSION 2
5. Shail, Andrew – On finishing a job: some more evolutionary history of the UK’s first cinemas.
6. Bottomore Stephen – Walter Buckstone (1886-1963), pioneering cameraman
7. Brown, Geoff – The Alien Menace and the Hidden Hand: Xenophobia, Anti-semitism and British Cinema
8. Diment, Cole – The Rural/Modern Dichotomy in the South West Phantom Ride
1.00 – 2.00 LUNCH BREAK
2.00 – 3.00 SPECIAL PRESENTATION [+ comfort break 2.50-3.00]
9. Toby Haggith introduces Peace on the Western Front (1930) with accompaniment by Stephen Horne
3.00 – 4.00 SESSION 3
10. Johnson, Veronica – The Irish Limelight
11. Condon, Denis – Bombing Ypres in Dublin: Film, Anti-Imperialism and the Irish Free State in 1925
4.00 – 4.30 TEA BREAK
4.30 – 6.00 SESSION 4
12. Dawn, Ayan – Chaplin in 1920s India: Distribution, Exhibition and Politics of Censorship
13. Allison, Deborah – ‘More than a match for many men': Framing Femininity in the Boys’ Cinema Weekly
14. Haven, Lisa Stein – Marriage Farce as Transitional Tool: Monty Banks’ BIP debut films, 1928-1930
15. Wyver, John – British television and the end times of silent cinema, 1928-1930
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Cinema Museum, 2 Renfrew Road, London, United Kingdom
GBP 20.00
