Film Screening & Presentation of 'Photo-Drama of Creation'

Event information

To mark the opening of this year’s 26th Foyle Film Festival (November
20-24), we are screening a film last shown in Derry 99 years ago. Early in the history of cinema, films with a Christian theme were not uncommon.

For sheer scale, nothing equalled the Photo-Drama of Creation, an incredible multi-media presentation that used lantern slides, films from many sources and audio recordings to proclaim the millennial vision of Charles Russell, founder of the International Bible Students Association, from which the Jehovah’s Witnesses would later emerge.

For many years, all its original elements were believed lost, until Brian Kutscher began a painstaking process of restoration in 1970 - which continues today - and has resulted in much of the Photo-Drama now becoming accessible. For those Christians who viewed cinema with disfavour, as ‘an invention of the devil’, the Photo-Drama was their first chance to experience film - with synchronised sound - in a reassuring context. In Ireland, it was originally seen in Dublin, Belfast and Derry during 1914.

Ulster-born film scholar and broadcaster Professor Ian Christie will introduce this very special presentation of extracts from Brian Kutscher’s restoration.