A special DVD release of all the restored Mutual Chaplin films with newly composed scores by Carl Davis conducting the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.
Twelve films directed and written by Charlie Chaplin.

Distribution for UK with The British Film Institute and with ARTE in France.

A Special Pack by Image Entertainment for North America containing The restored Mutual Films and the famous documentary: The Gentleman Tramp is planned for distribution.
A documentary on Charlie Chaplin made by Richard Patterson in 1975.

Please see:
Image Entertainment

To celebrate the contribution of Charlie Chaplin to cinema and filmmaking, some of his best-known feature length films, plus selected shorts, will be screened in Leicester Square on St George’s Day, Sunday 23 April. This
fitting location, the home of British cinema, also has a statue of Chaplin created by sculptor John Doubleday.

Organised by the Mayor of London with assistance from Association Chaplin, MK2 and the British Film Institute, this free event also includes children’s activities and workshops, plus street entertainment, Chaplin style.
Everyone is welcome to this unique, free film event.

Born in 1889 in Walworth, South London, Charlie Chaplin left England to tour the US as a clown with Fred Karno’s slapstick company in 1912.
He made his first films in 1914 and in the years that followed went on to achieve enormous acclaim and popularity as an actor, director, composer, writer and
producer, but most notably with his portrayal of ‘the Tramp’ in films that continue to have universal appeal to this day.

Programme (times are subject to confirmation):

• 12pm : A Dog’s Life (1918)

• 12.40pm : The Kid (1921)

Charlie Chaplin’s first full-length film. Co-starring five-year-old Jackie Coogan, The Kid is the story of a child abandoned in a limousine by his unwed mother. When the Little Tramp finds him, he tries unsuccessfully to
find a home for the boy. Obliged to keep him, the Little Tramp teaches the youngster about life on the streets.

• 2pm : (3 shorts) Kid Auto Races, A Film Johnnie and Mabel at the Wheel (1914)

BFI restored Keystone Film Company shorts with live piano accompaniment

• 2.50pm : The Gold Rush (1925, 1942)

Chaplin’s irrepressible Little Tramp seeks riches in the Yukon in this all time classic. Leave it to the Tramp as he turns hard times into hilarity as he savours a Thanksgiving feast of boiled shoe, slips outside a house teetering on a cliff and faces all manner of perils with pluck and
fortitude. The 1942 re-release of the 1925 original with sound track and narration by Chaplin will be screened.

• 4.30pm Modern Times (1936)

One of the happiest and most light hearted of the Chaplin pictures. Man v Machine! Chaplin’s Little Tramp plays an assembly line worker fighting back against the mind numbing monotony and time clock rigidity of industrialism.

(Film notes from “The Chaplin Collection”)

CHAPLIN AT LEICESTER SQUARE

Leicester Square, London WC2

Sunday 23 April 2006, 12pm – 6.00pm

St George’s day 2006

Please see: BFI

Restorations

The Cineteca di Bologna has, for over six years now, sustained an important relationship with Charlie Chaplin and his heirs. The delicate and complex restoration work carried out by the Cineteca and L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, which began with The Kid in 1999, is still in progress. Since then, thanks to a careful philological analysis, an accurate comparative study of existing materials and the use of the most sophisticated techniques to achieve the best possible sound and image quality, we have witnessed the restoration of “Modern Times”, “Monsieur Verdoux”, “Limelight”, “The Chaplin Revue” ({Shoulder Arms, The Pilgrim and Dog’s Life}), “The Circus” and Pay Day.} In 2003, alongside the restoration project that is due to complete all the director’s work in the next few years, a new initiative has been added. Promoted by {The Association Chaplin} in collaboration with BFI/National Film and Television Archive and Lobster Films, it proposes to restore the 35 slapstick comedies that Chaplin made with the Keystone Company in 1914.

The Paper Archive

The Cineteca di Bologna is carrying out an ambitious project, thanks to the fundamental support of the Fondazione Carisbo, to catalogue, digitise and preserve the monumental “paper legacy” left by Charlie Chaplin. It is part of The Chaplin Project. Nearly a century of cinema is contained in dozens of stories, screenplays, drawings and sketches, short stories, set stills and private photographs, daily production reports, ideas and notes for projects never realised, press books, letters and censorship documents. The 2003 inauguration of this “Chaplin Archive database” and of the Charlie Chaplin research centre at the Cineteca library, has allowed us to show the first results of a work, that once completed, will allow the world’s scholars, researchers and film experts access to this inexhaustible heritage. The project, currently in progress, has realised over 83,000 digital scans and nearly 5500 catalogue entries.

Please consult the archives here : www.charliechaplinarchive.org

The Publications

The original archive material, only available to a few film historians up to now, will be published and reproduced for the first time in a series of monographic volumes. The critical comments by film critics and historians of the unpublished papers, allow us to trace the crucial stages around the origins of the films, their creation, the unused versions, the censorship and distribution issues. Following on from the monographs dedicated to “Limelight”, “The Great Dictator” and “Modern Times”, Bologna published Kevin Brownlow’s {The Search for Charlie Chaplin} together with the memorable documentary Unknow Chaplin – for the first time on dvd – made by the same author and by David Gill.

The Chaplin Society of Japan will hold the Chaplin-Kono Conference in Kyoto in Japan from the 25th to 27th of March 2006.The aim of the Chaplin-Kono Conference is to reassess Charlie Chaplin and his secretary Kono Totaichi.
Kono worked for Chaplin from 1916 to 1934 and was Chaplin’s right hand man. But little is known about him. However a lot of new materials were found recently and Kono’s biography is becoming clear.

There will also be an exhibition of the huge amount of collection by Higashijima Tomie’s large collection, wich includes Chaplin’s portrait with his autograph for Kono, Chaplin’s train ticket, Virginia Cherrill’s portrait with her autograph for Kono, more than 300 precious photos such as Chaplin and Al Jolson or Kono and Laurel and Hardy or Ida Lupino, Kono’s own srapbook with a lot of precious newspaper clippings from those days, more than 500 pieces of letters to Kono and Chaplin and so on.

Ms Higashijima Tomie, Kono’s second wife, will talk about her memories of Kono.This conference and exhibition will offer new information on Chaplin.

We are looking for papers for the Chaplin-Kono Conference. The main emphasis is on Chaplin and Kono or Chaplin’s international influence. But papers do not neccessarily have to be on these topics. We are calling for papers on a wide range of Chaplin study. If you would like to contribute, please inform us by the end of January 2006.

Please contact:

Ono Hiroyuki
The Chaplin Society of Japan
Tel/Fax +81 (0)75-751-2992
ono@chaplinreview.com
[The Chaplin Society of Japan→http://www.chaplinjapan.com/english.html]}}

March 25th 2006:

• Professor Frank Scheide “The influence of English Music Hall on the Nonverbal Expression of Charles Spencer Chaplin”.

• Cecilia Ceaciarelli from {The Cineteca di Bologna} will talk about Chaplin’s unmade project.

• Davide Pozzi from {The Cineteca di Bologna}will talk about restoration of Chaplin’s films with a screening of Keystone films.

• Professor Kathryn Millard will talk about Chaplin’s imitators and will screen clips from her new documentary on Chaplin’s imitators.

March 26th 2006:

• Professor Nakagaki Kotaro “Chaplin and American culture”

• Professor Hattori Yuki “The History of Japan’s acceptance of Chaplin”

• David Robinson will talk about Music Hall and Chaplin.

• Ono Hiroyuki will talk about "Chaplin and Japan “Kono Toraichi”

• Clyde Kusatsu will talk about Kono and will screen clips from his new documentary on Kono: Chaplin’s driver.

• Professor Constance B.Kuriyama will talk about Kono and von Ulm.

• Higashijima Tomie will talk about her husband Kono

• The actress Kuroyanagi Tomie will talk about Chaplin, whom she met in New York in 1972.

• Josephine Chaplin will talk about her father, interviewed by Ono Hiroyuki.

Music composed by Charles Chaplin and Carl Davis recorded by The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Carl Davis.

2 CD set including: Modern Times The Great Dictator The Circus The Gold Rush A Countess from Hong Kong, City Lights The Kid Monsieur Verdoux Limelight The Reel Chaplin and suites from: The Floorwalker (1916) The Fireman (1916) The Vagabond (1916)One A.M (1916) The Count (1916) Behind the Screen (1916) The Rink (1916) Easy Street (1917) The Cure( 1917) The Immigrant (1917) The Adventurer (1917) composed by Carl Davis.

Distributed by Silva Screen Records