This film screened on Wednesday 15th July 2015.

Director David Nicholas Wilkinson will take part in a post-screening Q&A.

The First Film celebrates Frenchman Louis Le Prince, who invented a camera capable of capturing motion in 1888, three years before Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope, and seven years before the Lumiére Brothers’ Workers Leaving the Lumiére Factory.

The existence of the remaining fragments of Le Prince’s experiments, filmed in Yorkshire’s Roundhay Garden and on Leeds Bridge, and his contribution to the form have been largely overlooked, in part due to the mysterious circumstances of his disappearance in 1890, shortly before he was due to travel to the United States to give the first public demonstration of his invention.

Seeking to redress the balance and accord him his proper place in film history, director David Nicholas Wilkinson, who has worked for over 30 years to bring Le Prince’s story to wider attention, displays an infectious enthusiasm for his intriguing material.