Screen archives: fostering audiences for our shared film heritage through archive development and research

Screen Archive South East was established in 1992 and is a publicly-funded regional screen archive that curates and, with Cinecity, co-presents an annual film festival dedicated to contemporary independent film and screen heritage. Dr Frank Gray was the Director of Screen Archive South East and, with Tim Brown, is the Co-Director of Cinecity, both based at the University of Brighton. Frank Gray’s own research focuses primarily on the rise of film and early film culture around 1900, notably its roots in the innovative Brighton filmmakers of the period. His monograph (2019) on George Albert Smith and James Williamson is the first devoted to the work, legacies and influence of those Brighton pioneers and their respective contributions to the birth of film language, the beginnings of the film trade and the invention of Kinemacolor, the first viable 35mm colour film system.

This research situates their practices within a dynamic set of cultural, aesthetic, economic, technological and geographical relationships that influenced their activities as film-makers, the exhibition of their films, the reception of their work by audiences, and shaped the emergence of a new industry. Frank Gray provides a detailed analysis of a multitude of interactions between screen texts, their production and exhibition and their cultural and commercial contexts and it is this research methodology with its emphasis on ‘cine-ecosystems’, networks and supply chains that directly informs Screen Archive South East’s collection development policies and strategies and Cinecity’s curatorial development.

A Pathé Baby, 9.5mm amateur cine camera from the 1920s, and Eumig C16, a 16mm amateur cine camera from the 1950s. From the Screen Archive South East collections.

Dr Frank Gray’s research is dedicated to the use of primary sources in the generation of new histories. It concentrates on the detailed study of surviving lantern slides, 35mm films, business records, family records, catalogues, programmes and apparatus (eg cameras and projectors).

This emphasis on the ‘artefactual’ has had a direct bearing on the archival development of Screen Archive South East and its dedication to the systematic identification, collection, preservation, digitisation and public use of screen artefacts, for example the lantern slides, films, videotapes and digital files found in the South East. Frank Gray’s historicisation of archived objects found within the Screen Archive South East collection has also generated an understanding of the work of particular screen practitioners and media organisations such as the Church Army, their ideologies, their uses of screen technology and their engagement with audiences in a variety of public contexts.

These approaches have also nurtured the genesis and on-going development of Cinecity - Brighton and Hove’s film festival. Cinecity’s curatorial strategy expresses these inter-relationships through the careful crafting of research-informed programmes that blend the contemporary with the historical, including the festival’s commitment to its production of ‘live cinema’ events where performances fuse silent film with live music.

These research-informed cultural institutions, Cinecity and Screen Archive South East, have provided a powerful cultural presence within the screen culture of South East England and across the UK. 

They continue to attract and influence an ever-expanding community of researchers, producers, film-makers, artists, curators and audiences. Television producers regularly select films from Screen Archive South East in order to create news packages and documentaries on many aspects of British life in the twentieth century. 

The Verlux used by the Church Army Lantern Department, circa 1918. From the Screen Archive South East collections.

The selected Screen Archive South East, material has ranged from iconic national events, for example, a unique newsreel of the funeral of the Suffragette Emily Davison in 1913, to early colour films of pre-mechanised agricultural life, VE Day street parties and British street fashion. It also provided material for the international production of ‘China on Film’ (Channel News Asia, 2018), a series that highlighted Screen Archive South East’s unparalleled collection of what are believed to be the earliest colour films of China. The British film-maker Andrew Kötting has made extensive use of Screen Archive South East collection. He notes: "rarely does a year go by when I don’t find myself drawn to the treasures that offer themselves up for consideration when researching a project at SASE. […] And then when the work goes out into the world, to cinemas, galleries or as film grabs in bookworks, I feel truly proud and indebted to the resource."

Between 2013 and 2017 Frank Gray and Tim Brown founded and directed Film Hub South East, a new funding agency dedicated to developing new audiences for non-mainstream film, part of a new national film audience network established by the BFI. With an award of over one million pounds, they instituted a programme of activity that focussed on providing professional development opportunities for film exhibitors within the region’s independent cinema sector. Projects addressed social and cultural inclusion by focussing on neglected and marginalised subjects and audiences including Black History, LGBTQIA+, the elderly with dementia and young people with learning difficulties. 

Screen Archive South East and Cinecity continue to both lead and nurture the city’s independent screen culture. Cinecity’s annual film festival, the city’s major film festival, showcases world cinema and new archive restorations and has curated set of well-received exhibitions within the University of Brighton’s gallery. These included the first large-scale UK exhibition dedicated to the Czech surrealist Jan Svankmajer (2013) and Fake News: The British Cinema Newspapers (2017).

The British Film Institute provides a synoptic perspective on Screen Archive South East’s importance to screen culture nationally and internationally: "The BFI recognises SASE’s great achievement in being able to deliver a professional and highly valued screen heritage service to the South East of England and generate an impressive demand for its collection both in the UK and the world. […] Screen Archive South East’s excellent range of impacts demonstrates why the BFI, as the national agency for film, identifies it as 'a significant UK collection' and has continued to fund it year-on-year."