Screen Archive South East is a public sector moving image archive serving the South East of England. The archive's collections of magic lantern slides, films, videos and associated materials capture the many varied aspects of life, work and creativity from the early days of screen history to the present day and serve as a rich and invaluable historical resource.
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Country Rhapsody
A masterpiece of poetic imagery where wind, water, animals and men working the land provide a nostalgic vision of a vanished rural scene
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Overview
This delightful film from Frank Perrin Barnitt, shows the cycle of the seasons in a most poetic and wistful way. Trees bend in wild skies as water cascades down rivers. Newborn animals like lambs, calves and piglets, explore the world around them. Horses haul ploughs and orchards come into blossom. The sun-ripened wheat is harvested and threshed while men gather in and stack the hay. The apple crop is picked as tractors and horses help to prepare the land for the next year.
Frank Perrin Barnitt was a Tunbridge Wells solicitor who was also a highly skilled photographer and amateur film maker. Many of his films feature the natural world and range from poetical films about the land, traditional farming and rural handicrafts to natural history films on a microscopic level. In each of these films, Barnitt displays a high degree of technical skill as well as directorial ability as well as an ongoing enthusiasm for narrative film making. After retiring in 1945, Barnitt moved to Oulton Broad in Suffolk.
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