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Claude Friese-Greene, 1926

Sunday, 22nd September 2019, 5-7pm – as part of Glasgow Doors Open Days festival

Govanhill Picture House

The Open Road is an early experimental colour travelogue of 1920s Britain, featuring scenes from Glasgow.

Travelling by car, it was shot with a single camera using Claude Friese-Greene’s own experimental colour film process. It was restored in 2006 by the BFI, allowing this historic footage to be seen by a wide audience for the first time.

The Open Road is important both as a landmark in the development of colour on film but also as a fascinating social record of interwar Britain. The journey, by Vauxhall D-type, takes in some key locations in Glasgow, including the boating pond at Queens Park and the Kelvingrove Bandstand.

Supported by Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, and funded by Screen Scotland and Lottery funding from the BFI

Glasgow Doors Open Days Festival 2019

​20-22 September

Opening to the public for the first time since 1974, the historic Govanhill Picture House is about to get a new lease of life. Find out about ideas to regenerate a unique building and bring film back to the southside.

This B-listed cinema was designed by Eric A Sutherland, and still features key elements of its unique Egyptian-styled facade. Glazed ceramic columns and a moulded scarab above the entranceway are a rare surviving example of this type of architectural embellishment in the UK.

Following the building’s change of use from cinema to bingo hall to warehouse, the interior has now been almost completely stripped out, with only traces remaining such as the original projection box, roof struts and scraps of decor. It is now being rescued from dereliction, with a new roof, upper floor and exciting plans for its future.