Killruddery Arts is delighted to announce its first evening event to be held in the library at Killruddery House on Thursday November 16th at 8pm.

The evening is dedicated to the silent movie, with film director Andrew Legge and his guest of honour, Kevin Brownlow.

Andrew will be screening his short film The Unusual Inventions of Henry Cavendish (2005), which was featured at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, Italy, received special mention at the Cork film Festival 2005 and won best director at the Kerry Film Festival.

After the screening there will be a moment to discuss the work with Andrew and his producer Katie Lincoln.

Kevin Brownlow has specially sourced the print of the feature film to follow – Johanna Enlists, made in 1918 by Irish/American director William Desmond Taylor and starring Mary Pickford.

As an introduction to the film Kevin will talk about the evolution of silent film, showing three five-minute clips to illustrate his talk.

Both silent films will be accompanied with music by Jürgen Simpson, who composed the score for The Unusual Inventions of Henry Cavendish and will perform a live improvisation to accompany Johanna Enlists.
Andrew Legge has made a number of films. His latest project, the documentary ‘Fowl’, premiered this year at Cork Film Festival.

Katie Lincoln works in film and television production – her area of focus is documentary filmmaking. She is currently working in The Archive Unit in RTE.

Kevin Brownlow is one of the world’s leading silent film experts, he has been described by the British Film Institute as “the man who graduated from filming history to become the country’s leading film historian.” Amongst other things, he has spent a lifetime finding and restoring Abel Gance’s classic epic silent film – ‘Napoléon’, which was almost lost and forgotten. Director/Producer/Editor/Author, the list of his contribution to film and especially the conservation of Silent Film is too long to include here. See website http://www.allmovie.com/KevinBrownlow.

Jürgen Simpson is a composer, performer and educator, whose output includes electro-acoustic works, music for film, dance, two operas, and three albums with The Jimmy Cake Band. His second opera Thwaite received the 2003 Genesis Opera Projects top prize.

THE UNUSUAL INVENTIONS OF HENRY CAVENDISH is an Irish tale of a young inventor in Victorian Dublin who, thanks to his time machine, undoes the villainies of the cad who has stolen the woman he loves. The film lightly brushes a range of visual and literary references – Verne, Keaton, The Thief of Bagdad, Feuillade, Frankenstein, H.G.Wells. Most striking is its visual integrity and beauty: scenes of Dublin shot by Lumière cameramen in 1897 and still photographs from the same era are, by discreet digital means, seamlessly combined with the new dramatic material. Remarkably, most of the film was originally shot on a clockwork 16mm Russian “Krasnogorsk” camera, partly home-processed by Legge himself and blown up on a digital intermediate to 35mm. The actors – notably Hugh O’Conor, and the graceful Fiona O’Shaughnessy – achieve an authentic language of silent performance. Taken from a review written by David Robinson – the eminent director of the Pordenone Silent Film festival.

JOHANNA ENLISTS tells the story of a young girl who is bored to death with life in the country. She prays for Romance, for thrills and for a beau. God sends her an entire regiment. The Government wanted a propaganda picture from Mary Pickford, however she had had enough of anti-German sentiment. It so happened that Mary was honorary colonel to the 143rd field Artillery and it was arranged that its members would appear in this film. The result was indirect propaganda, so subtle that not until the end would the audience realize its intent. The Director William Desmond Taylor was born in Ireland and brought up at Belleville, Cappoquin, Co Waterford, when the family name was Deane-Tanner. He went to the US, and became an actor and director. He was a spokesman for the Directors’ Guild until he was shot in 1922 – a murder that has never been solved. Taken from Mary Pickford Rediscovered, Kevin Brownlow, Abrams(l999)