Dr Deborah Allison

British Silent Film Festival Symposium 2026 A range of papers showcasing the latest research on UK film culture before 1930 at the British Silent Film Festival Symposium 2026!

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/british-si...

The Aberdeen Bestiary, One of the Great Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts, Now Digitized in High Resolution & Made Available Online For thousands of years, ordinary people all over the world not only worked side-by-side with domestic animals on a daily basis, they also observed the wild fauna around them to learn how to navigate a...

The Aberdeen Bestiary, One of the Great Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts, Now Digitized in High Resolution & Made Available Online

I've had a longstanding assignment in Film History that asks students to interview an older family member about their earliest memorable film experience. It's led to some fascinating accounts, including outdoor screenings in China immediately after the Cultural Revolution, mobile screenings...

Kenneth Anger #BOTD. How I wish he’d actually got round to publishing those Memoirs he promised me back in 1995!

My latest article is out today: ‘Juvenile Enculturation in a Time of Change: The Early Years of the “Boys’ Cinema Weekly”’ out today in Journal of Modern Periodical Studies. doi.org/10.5325/jmod...

The Guardian view on the future of cinema: gen Z is falling in love with the big screen | Editorial Editorial: Film is in a state of existential crisis. But a new generation of cinephiles might save it from the streaming giants

Yes
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

kottke.org/24/12/werner...

As it’s officially Blue Monday, I thought I’d cheer myself by opening up this old wooden apple, which was originally my Mum’s and has been around for as long as I can remember. How cute is this?

The white neoclassical building of the Internet Archive headquarters appears through blue jigsaw puzzle pieces with text: "Wikipedia 25. Happy Birthday from Internet Archive."

🎉 Can you believe Wikipedia is 25 years old? 🎂

A quarter-century of free knowledge—built on a simple but powerful idea: show your sources. That commitment to citations is one of our favorite things about Wikipedia. ℹ️📚🔍
🧵⬇️ (1/5)

#Wikipedia25 #WikipediaDay @wikipedia.org

We've got another folklore film screening for you this month, partnering with our pals at Norfolk Folklore Society to bring Carnival of Souls (1962) to the big screen!

🗓 Wednesday 28 January, 8.30pm
📍Cinema City, Norwich

🎟 Tickets here: www.picturehouses.com/movie-detail...

Poster by Matt Willis

HEART OF STONE (Das kalte Herz, dir. Paul Verhoeven, GDR, 1950), DEFA’s first fairy-tale film, looking lovely in Agfacolor, was a delightful finale to our annual fairy tale retrospective.

Scandalous! The January season of pre-Code Hollywood movies starts at Picturehouse cinemas this Sunday. First up: THE PUBLIC ENEMY. Read more here: www.picturehouses.com/blog/scandalous #precode

Juraj Herz’s THE NINTH HEART (Czechoslovakia, 1979) proved a worthy follow up to the previous year’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. Bonus points earned for the fabulous opening titles by Eva Švankmajerová and Jan Švankmajer.

We revisited NEW ADVENTURES OF PUSS IN BOOTS (Aleksandr Rou, USSR, 1958) for yesterday’s fairy-tale film offering: Rou’s first venture into the genre after the ‘film famine’ of the post-war years. Pictured: the ever-wonderful Lidiia Vertinskaia.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (Juraj Herz, Czechoslovakia, 1978) is a macabre marvel: the first screen adaptation I’ve seen that comes close to rivalling Jean Cocteau’s seminal 1946 adaptation.

Producer/puppeteer Lou Bunin’s little-known feature adaptation of ALICE IN WONDERLAND (dir. Dallas Bower, France/UK, 1949) centres on delightful stop-motion animation amid strikingly minimalist sets. I especially liked the giant puppy.

We continued our fairy tale film season with THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN (dir. Bretaigne Windust, US, 1957). This Technicolor musical extravaganza was the first pre-recorded made-for-TV feature film. Claude Rains sings, and even dances a little. (Ignore the 1966 poster’s claims of Eastmancolor!)

Scandalous! I curated a short season of pre-code films with Rose Butler for Picturehouse Cinemas. Think of it as a festive gift to enliven your January and banish its upcoming blues. Read more here: www.picturehouses.com/blog/scandal... #precode

Next in our annual fairy tale film season: MOROZKO (Father Frost, dir. Iurii Zheliabuzhskii, USSR, 1924), released shortly before the escalating political war against fairy tales saw them disappear from Soviet screens for more than a decade.

We began our annual fairy tale film season with the very groovy, live-action folk revival adaptation of THE SNOW MAIDEN (Snegurochka, dir. Pavel Kadochnikov, USSR, 1968).

It's always a pleasure to find a fellow fan. I'm planning some festive rewatching too - alongside other world fairy-tale films.

Watch The Amazing 1912 Animation of Stop-Motion Pioneer Ladislas Starevich, Starring Dead Bugs Last week we featured 1937's The Tale of the Fox, the crowning glory of inventive Russian filmmaker Ladislas Starevich's work in puppet animation.

Watch The Amazing 1912 Animation of Stop-Motion Pioneer Ladislas Starevich, Starring Dead Bugs

A new review in for my book about Aleksandr Rou.

Lindsey Vickers obituary: onetime feature director behind rediscovered British horror The Appointment The British director, who has died at 85, only got one shot at a feature film and it never had a cinema release, but The Appointment was rediscovered 40 years later and won fans in Martin Scorsese, Gu...

Lindsey Vickers, the lovely chap who made THE APPOINTMENT, has died. I've written a tribute to him here:

www.bfi.org.uk/features/lin...

Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff drink tea on the set of THE BLACK CAT (1934).

RIP Adam Greenberg
He was the superb cinematographer who shot Near Dark (watch it!), Terminator 2: Judgment Day and, of course, The Terminator, which means he’s responsible for one of my favourite shots in cinema that also coined a new genre for its film:

Celebrate Day of the Dead with the mesmerising MACARIO (dir. Roberto Gavaldón, Mexico, 1960). Here’s a short piece I wrote about it for @sensesofcinema.bsky.social: www.sensesofcinema.com/2025/cteq/fr...

Your crumpled correspondent proudly plugging SHORT SHARP SHOCKS VOLUME 4 - out very soon on BFI
double disc Blu-ray. A plethora of peppery peculiarities are contained herein! Don't miss it.

Having never had the opportunity to see this brilliant film at the Pictures, I'm looking forward to what will be the LONDON CINEMA PREMIERE of THE APPOINTMENT this Sunday...

Image shows poster artwork for THE APPOINTMENT (1982, directed by Lindsey C. Vickers and starring Edward Woodward) and FULL CIRCLE: THE HAUNTING OF JULIA (1977, directed by Richard Loncraine and Starring Mia Farrow). Text reads: ‘Two BFI Flipside classics back on the big screen: October 2025’ with booking link at www.picturehouses.com

Not long now until this rare chance to see two fantastic BFI Flipside releases up on the big screen at Picturehouse Cinemas around the UK: THE APPOINTMENT (5-8 Oct) and FULL CIRCLE: THE HAUNTING OF JULIA (13-16 Oct). I can’t wait!