Lights! Cameras! London! BRYONY DIXON of the BFI explores the landscape of the lost, forgotten and often odd film studios of the silent era  - with clips and quips. 

A surprising number of small, independent and, at times influential studios and film production facilities dotted the capital in the years before the second world war.  Who were they, what did they do and why did they disappear? 

Blood! Cleavage! Vampires!  Our special guest discusses the censor-baiting output of some of London’s most daring and successful  independent studios: Gainsborough Pictures, Ealing and Hammer who produced an extraordinary range of often genre-defining movies, working in a city a world away from their much bigger Hollywood rivals.

BRYONY DIXON is a curator, writer and film programmer at the BFI National Archive specialising in early silent film. Author of BFI Screen Guide 100 Silent films and programmer of the BFI’s Sunday silent strand.

KIRI WALDEN has been involved in film production on both sides of the camera and is the author of British Film Studios (Shire, 2013). She currently teaches Film and Culturalstudies at Oxford University's Department for Continuing Education.   Her  interests include film history, women's military history, comicbooks, circus, magic and Victorian periodicals.