WW1 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

Deeds Not Words is a great success

Deeds Not Words, the immersive drama produced by Digital Drama, was a sell out success for the eight performances in Covent Garden.

Staged in the Swiss Church on Endell Street, Deeds Not Words was supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Depicting the lives and work of the the suffragette medics who set up and run the Endell Street Military Hospital, the production had a cast and crew of over 30 and an audience who were immersed in the action in their role as the War Office Committee, assessing a funding increase request but actually seeking signs of suffragette militancy.

After such a positive reception to the play, Digital Drama are planning further performances of Deeds Not Words and will release dates on this website in the autumn.

Performance Days-235 Stretcher coming through door

Performance Days-190 Tim Caroline & audience

By Kate Valentine|2017-08-02T07:58:32+00:0025 July 2017|Uncategorized|0 Comments

Galsworthy and Human Battles on the Home Front Exhibition

“Affecting and absorbing, Human Battles is a touching tribute to a local experience of war.”

A great evening for the opening of audio / visual exhibition Galsworthy and Human Battles on the Home Front, produced by Digital Drama for The Rose Theatre. Ken Smith, Mayor of Kingston, spoke of Galsworthy’s humanitarian campaigns and the South West London Military Wives Choir sang for guests including the exhibition’s local contributors.

Four stars for the exhibition from Alexandra Sims of The Upcoming:

“The exhibition not only unearths the much-forgotten philanthropy of one of London’s greatest author’s but also, through local stories, connects us to an event that a century on can feel extremely distant. The combination of personal tales and Galsworthy’s biography all framed within the context of the war creates an exhibition large in scope, yet with intimate and meaningful layers that speak to us today. Small touches such as the diary excerpts and letters, written by local soldiers and the embroidered postcards written with messages of love from the front, give an intimate touch making their sacrifices seem all the more devastating.

The audio element is particularly moving, as hearing the voices of soldier’s children and grandchilden as well as their undergoing rehabilitation at Headley Court make the exhibit all the more poignant. Affecting and absorbing, Human Battles is a touching tribute to a local experience of war.”

Click here for full review and here for the Galsworthy project page.

Galsworthy related images courtesy of Cadbury Research Library and Special Collections, University of Birmingham.