HippFest begins at home! This online event is open to all and will premiere on YouTube at the advertised start time. You also have the option to book a ticket in advance, to have the relevant viewing link sent to you directly via email on the day of the premiere.

The final instalment in our pre-festival HippFest at Home programme is inspired by the recent release of BFI curator Bryony Dixon's book The Story of Victorian Film.

She takes new look at the exciting early years of film, when a bunch of risk-taking and creative young pioneers, mostly in their twenties, threw their energies in to this new commercial venture. In the tough competitive world of entertainment they had to produce novelty, impact and aesthetic appeal and to demonstrate the mesmerising effects of the new medium. In this illustrated presentation, BFI curator Bryony Dixon takes us on a whistle-stop tour of Victorian cinema and introduces us to some of the fascinating personalities who made our first films... featuring two clips accompanied by HippFest favourite John Sweeney!

A New Look at Our Oldest Films is available to online audiences free of charge, and will remain available as part of our library of online content. Viewers of the online premiere will be able to pose questions via the chat box if they wish, to which Bryony will respond live.

Please consider choosing to purchase a ticket for £3 (+ booking fee) if you are able to do so. We rely on our box office income, grants and sponsorship for more than 80% of HippFest costs and invest all of the income generated by ticket sales back into the Festival. Those who can pay more help us to do this, whilst keeping the lowest priced tickets really affordable or free.

--

Bryony Dixon is the curator for silent film at the BFI National Archive. She writes about and curates programmes of silent film all over the world as well as being lead curator with the technical team on archive restorations including the silent films of Alfred Hitchcock and Anthony Asquith, the exploration films, South, The Great White Silence, Epic of Everest and many more.  She is currently working on the Stoll Sherlock Holmes series on 1921-23, early Natural History film and a programme of early colour film. She is the author of BFI books 100 Silent Films (2011) and The Story of Victorian Film (2023).