Festival to celebrate Yorkshire's silent cinema legacy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36721797

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A series of silent movie screenings will celebrate Yorkshire's links to the early pioneers of film.

The Yorkshire Silent Film Festival will show more than 30 films featuring stars such as Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Laurel and Hardy.

Organisers said the event would also mark the region's "special importance in the history of film".

The world's first film is reputed to have been shot in Leeds by Louis Le Prince in 1888.

Film producer Jonathan Best said: "The first moving images were shot in Leeds, and Holmfirth was the home of one of the earliest British film makers, James Bamforth.

"Yorkshire is one of the places in which silent cinema was born."

The Lumiere brothers and Thomas Edison are usually credited with pioneering the moving image, but their work came several years after Le Prince shot footage in Leeds.

Talking about the event, which celebrates the first 40 years of cinema, Mr Best urged people not familiar with silent film to come along, saying "it's like nothing else".

The festival, which starts in Doncaster, includes events in Hull, Leeds, Sheffield and Scarborough and runs at 13 venues from 6-30 July.

Each film will be accompanied by a pianist playing an improvised musical score.

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