Heritage Archives - Digital Drama

Selected for IWM Short Film Festival again!

Digital Drama’s short film Silk, Satin & Suffrage has been selected for the 2018 IWM Short Film Festival, which will showcase 28 shortlisted films that present challenging, inspiring and experimental responses to past and contemporary conflict. The free Festival, taking place at IWM London from 25-29 October 2018, presents documentaries, dramas and animations by student, amateur and professional filmmakers.

Helen Upcraft, IWM Short Film Festival Director, says: “We’ve been really impressed by the quality of this year’s entries, and it was a real challenge to create the 2018 official selection. The festival programme covers a huge range of topics, from the Spanish Civil War to Suffragette Banners, explored through many genres including animations, dramas and factual documentaries. We are very excited to be a part of the Making A New World season with our Special Category focusing on films exploring the First World War.”

Digital Drama Producer Alison Ramsey, who won the Short Film Festival’s Best Use of IWM Archive Material with the film Deeds not Words: Suffragette Surgeons of WWI in 2017, says: “The award has been great for our production company Digital Drama. Seeing our winning film tour venues across the country as part of Women’s Work 100, a programme led by IWM’s First World War Centenary Partnership, has been amazing. Furthermore, I feel that the award has helped raise our profile as filmmakers because it really is a marker of quality in the field.”

Watch Alison’s shortlisted film for this year Silk, Satin & Suffrage opposite and visit the project website.

Further details of the IWM Short Film Festival: www.iwm.org.uk/film-festival

By Kate Valentine|2018-10-10T11:49:29+00:0010 October 2018|Heritage, Videos|0 Comments

Silk, Satin and Suffrage Short Film Launched

To commemorate the 100 years since some women got the vote and the passing of the Representation of the People Act, Digital Drama have made a short film ‘Silk, Satin and Suffrage’ celebrating the women who designed, made and paraded the suffrage banners as part of their campaign for their voting rights.

This video is being featured as part of the Votes For Women exhibition at the Museum of London.

100 Banners is funded by a £95,500 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and £2,900 from the London Borough of Kingston upon Thames.

Digital Drama’s director Kate Valentine; “We are thrilled to have received support thanks to National Lottery players are confident the project will introduce the heritage of suffrage banners to a wider public. The new banners made, inspired by the collection at the Women’s Library, will enable their creators to explore the heritage of the women represented and the cause of suffrage they campaigned for .”

By Kate Valentine|2018-03-12T15:49:38+00:006 February 2018|Heritage, Uncategorized|2 Comments

Shortlisted for the Imperial War Museum Film Festival

Digital Drama has been short listed for the Imperial War Musuem Short Film Festival 2017 for ‘Deeds Not Words; The Suffragette Surgeons of WWI’.

In 2017, IWM Short Film Festival has seen nearly 700 entries across 78 different countries, which is a record for the festival. Running since 2001, and now in its sixteenth year, the festival encourages entrants to present imaginative and challenging films relating to IWM’s remit to understand the causes, course and consequences of war.

Matt Lee, IWM Short Film Festival Director says, “The sheer amount of entries for this year’s IWM Short Film Festival was incredible, and it is a testament to the quality of the submissions that we have a shortlist of nearly 40 powerful and provocative films – more than any we’ve ever showcased previously.”

Between Friday 17 and Sunday 26 November, audiences will have the opportunity to view these challenging, thought-provoking and inspirational films, which will be open to the public on a free, drop-in basis. Screenings will take place every day at 12pm, 2pm and 3pm in the Cinema at IWM London, with an additional screening at 1pm on Saturday 18, Saturday 25 and Sunday 26 November.

By Kate Valentine|2017-10-19T13:59:12+00:0019 October 2017|Heritage, Videos|0 Comments

Positive in Prison – Digital Drama’s New Audio Drama

This autumn, Digital Drama will be working with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, University of Warwick and University of Dublin on a new public engagement project funded by the Wellcome Trust.

The 1980s HIV/AIDS crisis may be recent history, but the experiences of those who lived through it are rapidly disappearing from the public mind.

The project will be part of the Being Human Festival in November 2017 and reintroduce one specific collection of experiences from the late ‘80s, from the HIV/AIDS separation unit in Dublin’s largest prison. Captured through oral histories, these stories are being transformed into a work of audio drama and will be transmitted at event to discuss this history and the process of retelling it with those involved.

Positive in Prison image white text large

By Kate Valentine|2017-08-03T11:01:23+00:003 August 2017|Drama, Heritage|0 Comments

Shakespeare Hut in Open House Weekend

If you haven’t managed to see Digital Drama’s audio visual installation Resurrecting the Shakespeare Hut, it is part of the Open House Weekend on the 17th and 18th of September and then open daily until the 23rd September at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Visit the Open House website to find out more details.

Resurrecting the Shakespeare Hut is a Heritage Lottery funded project created by Digital Drama and focused around a public installation commemorating the 100th anniversary of the opening of the YMCA Shakespeare Hut, which was on the grounds of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in Keppel Street, WC1.

YMCA Huts were a regular sight in England, France and on all the fighting fronts during the First World War, providing a ‘home from home’ for soldiers to rest, recover and be entertained. However, the Keppel Street hut was built with a special purpose – to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death and to entertain the troops through the playwright’s work, keeping them away from the dangerous London streets.

By Kate Valentine|2016-11-15T19:20:57+00:0013 September 2016|Heritage, Shakespeare|0 Comments