On the 27 November the Scottish Screen Archive will celebrate 25 years of film archiving work. It was set up in 1976 to assess, preserve and catalogue a growing number of old cans of film that were accumulating in a shed behind the Scottish Film Council_s headquarters in Dowanhill. Little did anyone realise at that time what a treasure house of Scotland_s film history would be amassed. Janet McBain who has been Curator of the collection since its inception was employed on a six-month contract to pick her way through the ancient footage and find out if there was anything worth saving. She and her two helpers were given an annexe to a meeting room as their office, the key to a shed in the back court where the cans of film had been stored and told to get on with it. And getting on with it she has been doing ever since.

Historic Screen Gems

The Scottish Screen Archive, now in it Silver Anniversary year, is the most important repository of Scotland's filmed history, housing as it does some of the oldest pieces of footage archived anywhere in the world. An example of this is footage of the Gordon Highlanders marching down Aberdeen's Union Terrace a few months before being sent to fight in the Boer War.

The collection now in excess of 20,000 cans is made up primarily of non-fiction work, documentaries, educational, amateur and industrial films. It also houses a growing collection of Gaelic language broadcast material.

Lottery To The Rescue

In 1999 thanks to a Heritage Lottery Fund grant the Archive was able to undertake a major project to identify and catalogue a backlog of 13,000 cans which had been received but which there had been no resources to view. This work, which will be completed in December this year has uncovered some amazing footage parts of which will be seen for the first time during the Silver Anniversary celebrations.

A suite of events is being held in four of Scotland's major cities to celebrate the Archive and commemorate aspects of the country's film history.

27 Nov GLASGOW FILM THEATRE - 6PM

THE CURATOR'S CUT. An affectionate journey through the Scottish Screen

Archive with Curator Janet McBain.

A special presentation to mark the Archive's silver anniversary with some newly recovered images of Scotland in the first decades of cinema, Harry Lauder's screen version of I LOVE A LASSIE (1920) and a selection of some of the Curator's favourite movies! A surprise birthday package.

Piano accompaniment by MIKE NOLAN

3rd Dec EDINBURGH - FILMHOUSE LOTHIAN ROAD - 6.30pm

and

4 Dec DUNDEE CONTEMPORARY ARTS - 8.30pm

The World in 1900

THE WORLD IN 1900 presents a tour around the world in motion pictures at the end of the nineteenth century and the close of the Victoria era. Presented as if it were a programme compiled in January 1901, at the time of Queen Victoria's death, our journey in films starts with her entertaining her family at Balmoral. We travel by rail over the Tay, across the Channel into Europe, across the Mediterranean to Palestine and Egypt then down to South Africa to the Boer War. Across the Indian Ocean to the Far East, Australia, back to China for the Boxer Rebellion, to Canada, New York City and Cuba for the Spanish American War, over the Atlantic to Ireland then back to Britain for a flavour of the new age to come.

The Scottish contribution to early cinema is represented in this programme with films made by William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, assistant to Thomas Edison, and whom many credit with being the true inventor of the cinematograph, and James Williamson, Fife born pioneer of British cinema.

Presented by Luke McKernan and Frank Gray.

Piano accompaniment by Neil Brand

Also - the first ever opportunity to see newly preserved films from the Mitchell & Kenyon collection of topicals of Britain in the early 1900_s, including workers leaving Baxter and Gilroy's jute mills in Dundee, and other street scenes. Films courtesy BFI Collections and presented by Curator Janet McBain

Mitchell & Kenyon was a late Victorian and Edwardian film company mainly making non-fiction films commissioned by travelling showmen for screening at local venues across UK. Recently re-discovered on their original nitrate negative stock some 800 titles are under restoration by the British Film Institute. Scottish fairground exhibitors such as the Greens are known to have commissioned Mitchell &Keynon to make films for showing in their cinematograph booths at the shows and some of these local scenes will be presented once more in Scotland for the first time in over one hundred years.

NEIL BRAND Actor, writer and musician has been playing silent film accompaniments for over 15 years. Initially at the National Film Theatre in London and subsequently throughout the world He has written acclaimed scores for many BFI video releases including Hitchcock's THE RING as well as music and script for TV radio and musical theatre.

LUKE McKERNAN, formerly cataloguer and the National Film and Television Archive, researcher and author on early British cinema. Now Head of Information at British Universities Film and Video Council

FRANK GRAY, film historian and curator of the SouthEast Film & Video Archive, specialist on the Brighton school of film pioneers.

6 Dec ABERDEEN -THE BELMONT CINEMA - 7.30p.m.

The Granite City on screen

A special screening of recently preserved films. In 1906 local film company, Walker's Cinematograph made a record of the royal visit to Aberdeen during the University's Quartercentenary celebrations. The original full-length version of this film has been newly copied for the first time since it was made. And in 1936 the city was portrayed again, in GRANITE CITY, the first professional colour film shot in Scotland. Commissioned by the Scottish Travel Association and produced by local photographic services dealer James E Henderson. . Until now only a black and white copy of the film has been seen but in the last eighteen months two colour copies have been found, one by the Lottery team working in the Archive and another in Aberdeen city archives. Using a combination of the best sequences from each the Archive has preserved the full colour version for this special screening. Also in the programme THE SILVER CITY (1957) - a documentary about the attractions of the city as seen through the eyes of a Scandinavian sailor, a honeymoon couple and a family of four, with commentary by John R Allan.

A video release of all these titles will complement the screening.

Piano accompaniment by Mike Nolan