''Yarmouth Fishing Boats Leaving Harbour'' (also known as ''Yarmouth Trawlers'' ) is an 1896 British

short Short may refer to: Places * Short (crater), a lunar impact crater on the near side of the Moon * Short, Mississippi, an unincorporated community * Short, Oklahoma, a census-designated place People * Short (surname) * List of people known as ...

black-and-white silent documentary film, directed by Birt Acres, featuring a fleet of fishing smacks leaving the harbour at

Great Yarmouth Great Yarmouth (), often called Yarmouth, is a seaside town and unparished area in, and the main administrative centre of, the Borough of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England; it straddles the River Yare and is located east of Norwich. A pop ...

, Norfolk, UK.

Synopsis

Three fishing boats are seen leaving the harbour at

. Only the tail end of the first is seen as it leaves the harbour to the right. The second (named ''Thrive'' and registered as YH 120) is pulled by a steam paddle tugboat. A third fishing boat (named ''I Will'' and registered as YH 723) sails off-screen to the right.

Production

The film was shot by Birt Acres in June or July 1896. It was the first time moving pictures were shot in

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

. It was filmed from a single position at the Gorleston Pier end of the harbour, looking back towards Great Yarmouth itself. It was one of two films Birt Acres shot in Yarmouth. The second, which was premiered in 1897, has not survived, but depicted passengers being loaded onto (or unloaded from) a pleasure boat on the beach. Like other actuality films of the period, the film has no on-screen title, and the name by which the film is generally known is based on its content and references in contemporary sources.

Release

The "attractive Victorian film," was according to Christian Hayes of BFI Screenonline, "one of the twenty-one subjects presented by Birt Acres to the royal family on 21st July 1896, the day before the marriage of Princess Maud to Prince Charles of Denmark, at one of the first royal film performances."

Legacy

The film was long considered lost but footage discovered in the Henville collection in 1995 has been identified by the BFI as being from this film. This "decaying print," according to Patrick Russell of the BFI, "was discovered and duplicated just in time for 1996's celebration of 100 years of projected film in Britain." Hayes concludes that "the fragmentary nature of the film - the jarring cuts and the deterioration of the print - only serve to make it all the more intriguing."

References

{{reflist British black-and-white films British silent short films 1890s short documentary films Black-and-white documentary films Great Yarmouth Films directed by Birt Acres 1890s rediscovered films British short documentary films Rediscovered British films