Museum Projects

Screen Archive South East is the main agency in the region for the promotion of screen heritage. This is expressed primarily through museum projects of a popular and accessible nature that examine film-making through appropriate themes and in particular localities.

In 1996, to mark the Centenary of Cinema, the Archive organised exhibitions and displays in museums and libraries on aspects of the region’s moving image heritage. These activities provided the opportunity to promote the archive’s work in film preservation and film heritage. These Centenary events took place at twelve venues across the region.

From 1996 to 2000, the archive established a Film Heritage collection at Elmbridge Museum in Weybridge, Surrey. It focuses on film-making in Weybridge this century, in particular Cecil Hepworth’s film studio.

The Screen Archive has a special relationship with Brighton & Hove City Council and its museums at Hove and Brighton. In 1993, Hove Museum opened the region’s first permanent display on early cinema. Our joint efforts in 1997 secured the Barnes Collection (devoted to film-making in the South East, c.1890-1910) and 2003 saw the opening of the new film and magic lantern galleries at Hove. At Brighton Museum, the archive curated the major exhibition - Kiss & Kill: Film Visions of Brighton (2002), contributed material to the new local history galleries (2002) and researched and designed the moving image workstation for the Brighton History Centre.

Capturing Colour

In 2010/11, Brighton Musuem & Art Gallery ran the exhibition 'Capturing Colour: Film, Invention and Wonder' which ran from December to March 2011

'Capturing Colour' was the first exhibition to tell the international story of colour film - from hand-colouring through to the digital image. It focused on the colour moving image in Britain from its origins in magic lanterns, early colour photography and Kromskops, to applied colour films, Kinemacolor, Technicolor and Kodachrome. Fantasy worlds, the wonders of the nature, cinema blockbusters and home movies all illustrated the stories of the quest for colour. An exploration of Brighton and Hove's role as the birthplace of Kinemacolor was of special interest. Films were viewable on 20 screens throughout the galleries.

For the exhibition, Screen Archive South East's research led to the digital re-construction of several 100 year-old Kinemacolor films -- restoring colour to rare surviving black & white 35mm prints, and showing them for the first time to modern audiences.

Exhibition highlights included film posters, treasures of the early cinema like George Albert Smith's 'The Two Clowns', an extract from 'The Red Shoes' in glorious Technicolor, along with the cameras and projectors used to make and show colour films throughout the 20th century. The curator was SASE director Dr. Frank Gray.

Capturing Colour was a collaboration between the Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove and Screen Archive South East. It was funded by Renaissance South East, Screen South and UK Film Council’s Digital Film Archive Fund supported by the National Lottery, University of Brighton and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.