North Devon Movie Bus

North Devon's Moviebus is to star in a new BBC Two Daytime series on Britain's film heritage to be shown this summer.

The Vintage Mobile Cinema, which is shortly due to embark on a series of six screenings across North Devon, has been chosen by the BBC to provide the backdrop for a new series on archive film, The Reel History of Britain.

The mobile cinema has been touring villages across the region for the past year, following its painstaking restoration and subsequent involvement in a project backed by South West Screen and the UK Film Council.

Following its forthcoming local tour, the bus will accompany Melvyn Bragg as he travels across Britain filming the brand new series. Over the course of 20 episodes, Lord Bragg will retell the fascinating stories about how life in Britain used to be, through the film collections of the British Film Institute and regional film archives.

The new documentary for BBC Two Daytime will trace the descendants of those featured in the films, as they come face-to-face with their ancestors to discover how they lived their lives. Along the way viewers will see how ordinary British people worked, loved and lived in the 20th century, as seen through social documentaries, tourist information films, newsreels, and government propaganda films.

For each of the 20 episodes, the production team and the mobile cinema will travel to a different location in Britain. It will also be used to screen some of the archive film footage.

Melvyn Bragg says: "At the turn of the last century one invention changed the way we recall our history forever - the motion camera. Thanks to Britain's pioneering film-makers, we can still glimpse a world long gone. "Most of this unique footage has never been seen before but now, more than one hundred years later, we can share the many secrets of this forgotten archive. I'm going to explore some of the most remarkable events of British history as captured on camera. Reaching back into the 20th century, this is an absorbing and entertaining insight into how we became who we are."

Emma Giffard from the Vintage Mobile Cinema said "We're incredibly excited about the series. Over the past year we have been taking archive film to remote communities, and the response has been overwhelming. The Mobile Cinema really gets people talking, laughing and remembering together. We're proud that we will now have the chance to share this experience with the rest of the country. The Vintage Mobile Cinema is a unique vehicle, and generates excitement wherever we go. We've visited many different places in this past year, screening all sorts of films, but it has been the archive film that has lit a real spark with our audiences. People are better able to understand the world we live in now through the lens of the past."

To find out where the movie bus will be next in North Devon http://www.moviebus.org.uk/