Exhibition: Animatograph! How cinema was born in Haringey + lunchtime talk

• From 5 April to 28 July 2019

Films - or ‘animated photography’ as they were originally called - first hit the screen in 1896. It was a young electrical engineer born in Holloway 150 years ago, Robert Paul, who led the way. Paul unveiled his own Animatograph projector on the same day in London as the famous Lumière cinématographe, and went on to achieve star billing in half a dozen London music halls that year.

He knew these first short films weren’t enough to hold public attention. In 1898, he and his wife Ellen bought land in Muswell Hill to build Britain’s first film studio. The films they made over the next years laid the basis of nearly everything we know in cinema – comedies, chases, dramas, and magical ‘trick films’.

This exhibition tells the story of how Robert and Ellen Paul really created cinema here in Haringey. The first American and French filmmakers took a lot of their ideas from the Pauls’ pioneering work, successfully exported all over the world for the next ten years.

Robert Paul was also a pioneer in electrical science, with many key inventions to his name. He continued this work after retiring from cinema – even inventing a portable iron lung in 1936 to help sufferers from diptheria and polio.

This hands-on and interactive exhibition is curated by Ian Christie, Film and Media History Professor, Birkbeck College, University of London, and has an associated programme of talks, events and activities at the museum.

Kindly supported by Tottenham Grammar School Foundation, and Birkbeck, University of London

A graphic novel accompanies the exhibition: 'Time Traveller; Robert Paul and the Invention of Cinema', published by the Nerve Centre, Derry-Londonderry, with support from Northern Ireland Screen.

Location: Coleraine Gallery at Bruce Castle Museum, Lordship Lane, Tottenham

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To accompany this exhibition there is a talk on Monday 29th April at 12.15 by Ian Christie, Professor of Film and Media History, Birkbeck College.

Most of the hundreds of films produced in Muswell Hill by early film pioneer Robert Paul before 1910 have disappeared. But they are gradually being found, often in strange places! In this talk, Ian Christie will reveal some recent discoveries, and suggests how and where we might look for more long-lost early films.

Part of Bruce Castle Museum Munch and Listen season - just bring your lunch and listen! All welcome.