Illustrated talk by researcher Alex Kirstukas pairing samples of early gothic 'ghost story' films with live commentary and archive insights.
Alex Kirstukas is at The London Archives on Saturday 12 December for Ghosts in the Archives β Gothic Tales from Early Cinema, an illustrated talk on the ghost stories of early cinema. It runs from 3:00pm to 4:30pm at 40 Northampton Road in Clerkenwell, central London.
Early British filmmakers had a real thing for ghosts and the occult. They spent a lot of time retelling classic gothic stories like A Christmas Carol and The Mistletoe Bough, while making up new ones to feed the era's craze for spiritualism. But there's a second, more melancholic ghost story running through the whole thing: more than 90% of silent films are now missing and presumed lost. Kirstukas works from that idea, pairing clips of early gothic ghost films with live commentary and archival insights into the ghostliness of film history itself.
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Kirstukas is a postgraduate researcher in drama and music at Royal Holloway University of London, studying the connections between live performance and early film on an AHRC/technΔ Collaborative Doctoral Award with The London Archives. The archives themselves are a free public resource devoted to the history of London from 1067 to the present day. Tickets are Β£10, and booking is required.
