Gala screening Chaplin's Limelight
Lord Attenborough, Neil McEwan, Managing Director, Warner Home Video
On Friday 25 October 2002 as part of the National Film Theatre's on-going celebration of its 50th anniversary, actress Claire Bloom, Lord Attenborough and David Robinson (historian, archivist and author of the definitive Chaplin biography) attended a gala screening of the newly restored print of Charlie Chaplin's Limelight (courtesy of Cineteca del Commune di Bologna and MK2).
At the gala Adrian Wootton, Artistic Director of the bfi announced the launch of the bfi Charlie Chaplin Research Foundation, a new research facility commemorating Charlie Chaplin at the National Film Theatre on London's South Bank.
L-R: Rick Senat, Deputy Chairman, bfi; David Robinson; Claire Bloom; Lord Attenborough, President of the bfi Charlie Chaplin Research Foundation.
Lord Attenborough is patron of the Foundation which is operated by the British Film Institute with the approval and guidance of Association Chaplin and the Chaplin family.
Warner Home Video launched the foundation with a generous donation of £100,000 which was presented to Lord Attenborough on stage by Neil McEwan, Managing Director, Warner Home Video.
Neil McEwan said, "Warner Home Video are proud to be associated with this project. We are looking forward to bringing the genius of Chaplin to as wide an audience as possible."
Adrian Wootton said, "Chaplin's early association with this area of London makes the Charlie Chaplin Research Foundation an apt addition to our facilities on the South Bank. It will offer a unique resource to international researchers, historians, archivists, students and film-makers who wish to study the life and works of Charlie Chaplin and his contempories."
L-R Adrian Wootton, Rick Senat, Neil McEwan, Paul Merton
David Robinson said, "I am delighted that the Charlie Chaplin Research Foundation will offer a way of centralising the significant collections of Chaplin material in the UK and enabling further research and study. I am especially pleased that this Foundation will be displaying and preserving my own extensive holdings of Chaplin material which I have spent my life collecting. Added to the bfi's own extensive holdings of films, stills, posters, press-cuttings and papers that is an unparalleled resource."
