People who like saving things (with Hannah Silver and Jen Patterson)

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In 2013, we acquired a collection of over 1,800 rural films that had been carefully assembled, preserved, and frequently shared by a Nottinghamshire farmer called Richard Watts. 

Now, with funding from the BFI, we've been able to work on this incredible archive, cataloguing the films, digitising them, and sharing them in screenings of our own.

In this episode, Joe (just Joe this time!) is joined by the team working on our BFI-funded project, Watts in the Country: Hannah Silver and Jen Patterson. We talk about the challenges of working with archival film, the significance of 16mm in today's digital age, and what the films themselves reveal about rural history.

Come to our YouTube live screening, 26 October @ 3pm – https://www.youtube.com/live/9ZFpDCDWncU?si=EfHc8YGkPUT7mUDA

Relevant links:

• Watts in the Country: https://merl.reading.ac.uk/news-and-views/inclusive-approaches-to-rural-films/

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Absolute Units is the official podcast of The Museum of English Rural Life. This series is made possible through the generous support of Arts Council England and Museums Partnership Reading, a partnership of The MERL with Reading Museum. Theme tune by Tai Dawson. This podcast contains audio from Epidemic Sound.

Co-hosts: Ollie Douglas and Joe Vaughan
Producer: Joe Vaughan

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