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Contest to celebrate pioneering Pennines film-maker
IT IS regarded as the world's first edited film and could have launched Holmfirth as a focal point of the international film industry.
Fate took a hand and the one-minute The Kiss in the Tunnel, produced by Holmfirth's Bamforth & Co, became largely overlooked and the town was eclipsed by Hollywood.
Now tourism bosses have revived the historic film in an attempt to highlight the visitor potential of the Pennine region and recreated a scene from it, in which an aristocratic couple share a passionate embrace in a railway carriage.
Yesterday's filming at Ingrow on the Keighley and Worth Valley preserved steam railway was meant as a springboard to encourage visitors to come up with their own one-minute recordings of some of their favourite elements of the Pennines.
That footage will eventually be placed on the Pennine Yorkshire website and the best entries may be featured in a premiere-style launch, possibly at Holmfirth's Picturedrome, or at the National Media Museum in Bradford.
The Kiss in the Tunnel is now in its 110th anniversary year and is acclaimed as the first film in the world to be properly edited when it was produced in 1899.
Pennine Yorkshire is suggesting entrants to its competition use mobile phones or video cameras to capture their images, for the www.pennineyorkshire.com website, which will be available to be seen globally.
Liz Tattersley, manager at West Yorkshire Tourism Partnership, responsible for the Pennine Yorkshire initiative, said: "The Bamforths, along with the Bront sisters, are synonymous with the region and represent some of the finest cultural and literary case studies, not just here but across the globe.
"The Kiss in the Tunnel is celebrating its 110th birthday and, with it being acclaimed as the first edited film, we thought it fitting to remember the Bamforths' contribution to the film industry by asking tourists to capture short clips of their favourite parts of the region.
"Whether people want to recreate a scene from a Bamforth film or give us a recital from Jane Eyre, we are looking forward to watching what visitors to the region see as our finest attractions."
Screen Yorkshire's emerging talent manager Tony Dixon said: "The Kiss in the Tunnel, albeit only a minute or so long, is an extremely significant part of film history and it's amazing to think that one of Yorkshire's sons was responsible for techniques that Hollywood has since emulated."
The initiative is designed to promote the local authority areas of Bradford, Kirklees, Calderdale, Leeds and Wakefield as tourist centres.
The district has attractions including the World Heritage Site of Saltaire; Howarth, with its Bront connections; Holmfirth, which is now best known as the backdrop for The Last of the Summer Wine; and Hebden Bridge, which has been voted among the "funkiest" places in the world.
Entries to the contest can be sent as mpeg/WMV files to film@pennineyorkshire.com.
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 26 May 2012
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Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
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