LONDONERS: To celebrate BFI’s newly-restored Mitchell & Kenyon Archive of Edwardian films, we teamed up with Channel 4 to make a film about London in the 21st century, using the same 100 year old technology.
In the early 1900’s filmmakers Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon would travel the country, filming the local population, documenting the very first human reactions to a camera. In an era obsessed with digital technology and an increasingly camera-skeptic public, Londoners is an attempt to recreate this spectacle using the same technology and filming techniques. It was filmed entirely on a 100 year old wooden hand-cranked 35mm camera, and documents thousands of people happily interacting directly with the camera, almost exactly as they did 100 years ago. This film is proof that people today are not that different from the people in Mitchell and Kenyon’s films. In fact, once you watch Londoners, you realise that even after over a century of progress, very little has changed at all.
A Channel 4 co-production and part of the BFI National Archive.
PRESS: Wired Magazine / Amelia's Magazine / Little Black Book / British Film Institute / Nisi Masa / Adformatie / Kino London / Silent London / Trailer Addict / Directors Notes / Film School Rejects / Cinema Jam Sessions / Aesthetica Magazine / British Film Council / Little White Lies
OFFICIAL SELECTION: London Short Film Festival 2014 / Chicago Film Critics Festival 2014 / Pluk de Nacht Amsterdam 2014 / Camerimage 2013 / Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2013 / San Francisco Documentary Film Festival 2013 / Cinema Jam 2013 / Huesca International Film Festival 2013 / Fest - International Film Festival 2013 / Athens International Film+Video Festival 2013 / Nashville Film Festival 2013 / Mecal BCN 2013 / Atlanta Film Festival 2013 / Nisi Masa Generator 2013 / Cucalorus Film Festival 2012 / Tacoma Film Festival 2012 / Encounters Film Festival 2012 / Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival 2012
CREDITS: Producer: Gwilym Gwillim / Director: Joseph Ernst / DOP: Oliver Schofield / Editor: Adam Marshall @ Whitehouse Post / Camera: Candida Richardson + Joseph Ernst / Telecine: Vik Parker @ Prime Focus / Sound: Ed Downham @ Wave Studios / Music: Bat for Lashes (Natasha Kahn) / Title Design: Sean Freeman / Post Production: Marcus Dryden + Richard Greenwood / Locations: Algy Sloan / Camera Supply: David French @ Photographic Hire Ltd / Film: Kodak / Processing: DeLuxe
Official trailer for Londoners
“A purely cinematic method that borders on the profound” — Tim Hayes, Little White Lies
