RW PAUL: THE COLLECTED FILMS 1895-1908

Robert W Paul is justly celebrated as the leading pioneer of British film and one of the founders of world cinema. Paul produced what is arguably the first British narrative film A Soldiers’s Courtship (1896, now lost), and in 1898 became the first person to edit two scenes together in Come Along, Do!. With the help of former magician Walter Booth, he created elaborate fantasies in the mould of George Melies such as The ‘?’ Motorist (1906), in which an animated motorcar drives off into space and around the rings of Saturn.

This collection includes 62 films from archives around the world including Cupid at the Washtub 1898; A Camp Smithy 1899 and an excerpt from The Magic Sword 1901 supplied by NZFA.