AllMovie

At the turn of the 20th century, filmmakers Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon were commissioned by touring showmen to shoot a series of "local films for local people." The result was a series of shorts filmed between 1900 and 1913 that painted a vivid picture of Edwardian England by capturing people from all walks of life at work and at play in their natural environments. Subsequently locked away for decades and assumed lost to the ravages of time, Mitchell and Kenyon's films were discovered in the basement of a photographer's shop in Blackburn, Lancashire, England, in 1994. Six years later, more than 800 of Mitchell and Kenyon's film reels were donated to the British Film Institute, and preservation measures began almost immediately. Taken from 28 hours of footage, the 30 short films included in Electric Edwardians are split into four segments entitled: "Youth and Education," "Workers," "High Days and Holidays," and "People and Places." A specially commissioned score by Sheffield-based musical duo In the Nursery accompanies the films.