Nottingham Panorama

Artist: Patrick Keiller and Stephen Connolly

Where: , Old Market Square

Date(s): 24/03/07

Time(s): 4pm-7pm

Cost: Free

A film by Patrick Keiller and Stephen Connolly incorporating Tram Rides through Nottingham (Mitchell & Kenyon,1902) courtesy of the BFI.

Imagine a ride through Nottingham in a time machine. You travel through the city both as it is today, and as it was a century ago.

You start at the railway station, and make your way to Old Market Square, up Queen Street, and then along to the site of the former Victoria railway station, now the Victoria Centre. You recognise some buildings and places, but some have changed beyond all recognition.

You discover this was the route of Nottingham’s pre-war electric trams, which operated from January 1901. The last tram, to Arnold, ran in September 1936.

Nottingham Panorama is a fascinating exploration of the city and its history, by acclaimed filmmakers Patrick Keiller and Stephen Connolly. It incorporates both archive material made by the famed Mitchell & Kenyon, and footage of contemporary Nottingham in 2007.

Mitchell & Kenyon travelled the country in the early days of filmmaking, producing a unique record of the times. In the early 1990s over 800 films were discovered stored in two large barrels in the basement of a shop in Blackburn. Some of this footage, mostly of their native North West, was seen in the recent BBC series The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon.

Made in the very early days of cinema, the films were generally commissioned by travelling fairground operators. When Mitchell & Kenyon came to town, people would try to make sure they were in the picture, so that they might later see themselves in the movies! These precious records have now been brought back to life through the work, amongst others, of the National Fairground Archive.

Described as “one of the most distinctive voices to emerge in British cinema since Peter Greenaway”, Patrick Keiller’s films exploring city life have been screened and televised throughout the world. The best known of these, London (1994) which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, and the critically acclaimed Robinson in Space (1997), feature the unseen fictional Robinson as he observes the state of the nation in the 1990s. Both are narrated by legendary actor Paul Scofield.

The Dilapidated Dwelling in 2000 studied the decline in the UK’s housing stock, featuring a voiceover by Tilda Swinton. The interactive DVD project, The City of the Future, draws on archive films from the first decade of the twentieth century, providing enigmatic experiences of the vanished city.

A collaborator on The City of the Future, Stephen Connolly’s films develop cinematic montage often creating juxtapositions between past and future. Shown at Folkestone Library & Museum, Folkestone Obscura uses archive material of entertainments on the seafront with new footage and interviews with local people. His films have been shown in festivals around the world, and in exhibitions in Beijing, Barcelona and Bremen, Germany. Stephen Connolly was included in the prestigious Bloomberg New Contemporaries exhibition in 2006.

Devised by Patrick Keiller
Photographed and edited by Stephen Connolly
Camera assistance: Adam Clitheroe

British Film Institute

Screen Online