Prof Lance Pettitt at St Mary’s University, Twickenham is to introduce a rare screening of archive film at the Southbank’s National Film Theatre as part of the BFI’s ‘Projecting the Archive’ series on Thursday 2nd October.
Prof Pettitt, who is Director for St Mary’s Centre for Irish Studies, has recently co-edited the memoir of Belfast-born film director Brian Desmond Hurst 
Travelling the Road: Memoir of Life in Cinema (Belfast: Lagan Press, Sept 2014) with Allan Esler Smith.
As part of the evening, Lance and Allan will give an extended introduction to Hurst’s break-through feature film Ourselves Alone (1936), an action-romance set during the Anglo-Irish war. Starring John Lodge, it opened in London’s West End but was banned by the authorities in Northern Ireland as ‘Sinn Fein propaganda’.
This high profile screening forms part of an ongoing series of films from the BFI’s National Archive. About the event Prof Pettitt said, “This film is a beautiful print and will be a big-screen treat for cinephiles. Hurst is a seriously underrated director and I am delighted that the Hurst Estate and the BFI have supported this screening.”
The BFI screening begins at 6.30pm and tickets cost from £8.50. For more information and to book please visit the BFI website.
The screening is a taster for Prof Pettitt’s inaugural lecture in November, ‘Irish cinema: Memoir, Nation and Self-Narration’, which looks at how autobiographical writing by filmmakers might help us to re-think the contours of cinema history. The lecture will take place on Thursday 20th November at 7pm at Europe House, London. It is free and open to the public.
For more information please visit the website. You can also follow the Centre for Irish Studies on Twitter.
Travelling the Road: Memoir of Life in Cinema (Belfast: Lagan Press, Sept 2014) with Allan Esler Smith.
As part of the evening, Lance and Allan will give an extended introduction to Hurst’s break-through feature film Ourselves Alone (1936), an action-romance set during the Anglo-Irish war. Starring John Lodge, it opened in London’s West End but was banned by the authorities in Northern Ireland as ‘Sinn Fein propaganda’.
This high profile screening forms part of an ongoing series of films from the BFI’s National Archive. About the event Prof Pettitt said, “This film is a beautiful print and will be a big-screen treat for cinephiles. Hurst is a seriously underrated director and I am delighted that the Hurst Estate and the BFI have supported this screening.”
The BFI screening begins at 6.30pm and tickets cost from £8.50. For more information and to book please visit the BFI website.
The screening is a taster for Prof Pettitt’s inaugural lecture in November, ‘Irish cinema: Memoir, Nation and Self-Narration’, which looks at how autobiographical writing by filmmakers might help us to re-think the contours of cinema history. The lecture will take place on Thursday 20th November at 7pm at Europe House, London. It is free and open to the public.
For more information please visit the website. You can also follow the Centre for Irish Studies on Twitter.Media enquiries
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