Screening of the film “England, My England”

Bulgarian Cultural Institute London cordially invites you to the screening of the film “England, My England” and discussion with the Director Tony Palmer with glass of wine, on Friday the 28th of January 2022, at 6.30 pm sharp, at “Sofia” Gallery. “England, My England” was the first co-production between a Bulgarian company and a UK TV company.

Special guest: Tony Palmer, Director

Moderated by Phillip Bergson, Critic and Broadcaster

England, My England UK, 1995, 153 min, color

Director: Tony Palmer

Script: John Osborne, Charles Wood

Camera: Nicholas D. Knowland

Music: Henry Purcell

Cast: Simon Callow, Michael Ball, Rebecca Front, Lucy Speed, Letitia Dean, Nina Young

Producer: Mike Bluett

Associate producers: Stefan Kitanov, Radoslav Spassov

“Henry Purcell is a complete mystery. We know where he’s buried (next to Vaughan Williams in Westminster Abbey), but that’s about it. We don’t even know who paid for his memorial stone in the Abbey. No-one knows for sure where he was born or even precisely when he was born. We don’t know who his father was nor the name of his mother. He lived exactly the same number of years as Mozart – just thirty-six – but we only know in detail what he did for three of those years. Page after page of the manuscripts of some of his master-works are completely blank. Purcell was – and is – a mystery, except that we know he wrote over a thousand works, at least one for every working week of his life.

How then to make a film about such a mysterious, almost non-existent, ‘person’ whose glorious music remains our principal source of ‘information’? John Osborne came up with a brilliant solution.

TONY PALMER

Tony Palmer is one of the leading directors of music documentaries and historical drama films in the world. His filmography of over one hundred films ranges from early works with The Beatles, Cream, Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa, to the famous portraits with and about Walton, Britten, Stravinsky, Maria Callas, John Osborne, Margot Fonteyn and Menuhin. His 7 hour 45 minutes film on Wagner, starring Richard Burton, Laurence Olivier and Vanessa Redgrave, was described by the Los Angeles Times as „one of the most beautiful films ever made”. Among over 40 international prizes for his work are 12 Gold Medals at the New York Film & Television Festival, as well as numerous BAFTA (British Academy of Film & Television) and EMMY nominations and awards. He is the only person to have won the Prix Italia twice. Tony Palmer was awarded the Sofia Municipality award for outstanding achievements in world cinema in 2010.

Invites: HERE