BFI, National Trust and The Luna Cinema open-air screen season

Open-air film highlights to include The Imitation Game at Lyme Park and Shakespeare in Love at Hardwick Hall

This summer, National Trust locations will provide the setting for a season of ten feature film screenings preceded by specially selected archive film from the BFI and regional and national archives of the UK.

The films will tour venues around the country, as part of The Luna Cinema’s 2015 programme, bringing open-air cinema to Cheshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Bristol and Surrey.

Starting in late August, the National Trust Screen Season will offer an atmospheric viewing experience, tying-in films to the locations.

Audiences can watch The Imitation Game (2014) and Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) at Lyme Park while fans of period drama can enjoy Shakespeare in Love (1998) in the surroundings

of Hardwick Hall, one of the greatest Elizabethan houses, or Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) in the atmospheric ruins of Fountains Abbey.

The ten feature films of the Screen Season will be preceded by BFI-curated newly digitised archive footage, specific to each regional location. Short compilations of film clips,

dating back as far as the early 1900s, bring local history and culture to life through film, giving a tantalising glimpse into a bygone era.

These previously unseen films are part of Britain on Film, an exciting major new BFI project that reveals hidden histories and forgotten stories of people and places from the

UK’s key film and TV archives and available for free on BFI Player.

The main feature programme is as follows:

30^th & 31^st August – Fountains Abbey – Calendar Girls (2003) / Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

5^th & 6^th September – Hardwick Hall – The Full Monty (1997) / Shakespeare in Love (1998)

9^th & 10^th September – Box Hill – Finding Neverland (2004) / Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

23^rd & 24^th September – Lyme Park – The Imitation Game (2014) / Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)

2^nd & 3^rd October – Tyntesfield – Hot Fuzz (2007) / Shaun the Sheep: The Movie (2015)

The archive film clips that will be shown at the Screen Season include

Lyme Park

Experience an eccentric slice of life in Edwardian Cheshire with a 1904 film of the Knutsford May Day celebrations from the BFI National Archive’s Mitchell & Kenyon collection. Two days after it was shot it was shown at Manchester’s St James’ Hall, an important venue for the exhibition of early film. Next, climb aboard a compelling ‘phantom ride’ through the market town of Glossop near the Derbyshire border shortly before the Great War, in a 1912 film from the Media Archive for Central England. Heading deeper into the Peak District, a 1930 newsreel from the BFI’s Topical Budget collection captures a peaceful protest at Winnats Pass – an important step in the long struggle to open up Britain’s countryside to the public.

Fountains Abbey

We’re in Edwardian Skipton, where crowds brave some pretty miserable weather to raise money for the local hospital in an extraordinary 1902 film from the BFI National Archive’s Mitchell & Kenyon collection. The annual parade still takes place today, known as the Skipton Gala. Then we’re taking a genteel stroll through 1930s Harrogate with a home movie from the Scottish Screen Archive by Glasgow filmmaker Clifford Strain. Strain later relocated to Harrogate and established a successful tomato farm. We’re finishing up with a groovy 1961 Electricity Board promo from the North East Film Archive, urging customers across Yorkshire and the North East to ‘get up to date – go electric’. There’s another glimpse of Harrogate during the Great Yorkshire Show (look out for the “Miracle Milker”) plus Scarborough’s famous illuminations.

Hardwick Hall

Welcome to Edwardian Mansfield and a precious glimpse of a congregation leaving the town’s Wesleyan Chapel (now the Bridge Street Methodist Church). This 1901 film is part of the BFI National Archive’s Mitchell & Kenyon collection. Flash forward to 1968 and the rural Derbyshire village of Doe Lea: a moving film from the Media Archive for Central England made by a group of young people from Stainsby Arts Centre captures the response of local communities to the decline of the mining industry. We finish with a colourful home movie shot between the mid 1960s and the early 1970s by Fred Hutchinson, showing the annual Sunday school whit walk.

Box Hill

This trio of films from Screen Archive South East kicks off with a journey back to the golden age of the touring car, with a lively home movie from 1935. A flat tyre won’t deter these intrepid motorists and they enjoy a well-earned picnic on Box Hill. Next it’s 1953 and you are cordially invited to Horley’s Grand Coronation Fête, where the adults seem to be having as much fun as the kids. All the classic attractions are here including a coconut shy, fortune-telling by ‘Madame Coronita’ and a soapbox derby. Finally, distinguished star of stage and screen Dame Sybil Thorndike gets the construction of Leatherhead’s new Thorndike Theatre under way in a colourful amateur film from 1969.

Tyntesfield

Three films from the BFI National Archive offer contrasting snapshots of the wider Bristol area in the first half of the 20^th century, starting with a spectacular Edwardian journey down the Avon gorge, filmed in 1902 and preserved in the Mitchell & Kenyon collection. Views include the estuary, Portishead docks and the entrance to the Clifton Rocks Railway. Jump forward to WWII and an ambitious amateur colour film vividly captures the devastation wreaked on Bristol by the bombing raids of 1940-41. Finally, explore mid-century Bristol in a City Council-funded documentary on how a thousand years of history helped the West Country capital emerge from the blitz as a modern city of art and industry. Made for the 1951 Festival of Britain it was, unusually for the time, directed by a woman – Mary Francis.

Robin Baker, Head Curator at BFI, said: “’This fantastic partnership with Luna Cinema and the National Trust gives us a unique platform to bring Britain on Film to life in iconic British locations.”

Daniel Dodd, Communications & Content Director at The National Trust, said:

“The National Trust cares for beautiful places so that people can enjoy them for ever. What could be more enjoyable than an evening spent soaking up the spirit of our places, experiencing a great movie and being among the first to see fascinating historical archive film with regional connections to those places. We are delighted to be involved in this exciting partnership with the BFI and the Luna Cinema.”

George Wood, founder of The Luna Cinema, said: “In our eighth year of touring great films around iconic venues up and down the country, this collaboration shows how far Luna has come from that first screening in Dulwich Park. It is a dream realised to be partnering with the BFI – the masters of film – and the National Trust, which looks after some of the most stunning properties in the UK.”

As with all Luna screenings, audiences are welcome to bring along picnics and drinks. However, all events will also have hot food for sale and a full bar on site. Premium tickets are available at all screenings, which as standard include a seat (in prime position in the arena), a drink at the Luna Bar and a gift bag supplied by DoubleTree by Hilton.

To book tickets and for more information visit thelunacinema.com.