Breathing new life into old film

Community transforms historical footage into collaborative art.

Alongside her archival work and experimental filmmaking, Lydia Beilby teaches on our MSc programme in Film, Exhibition and Curation (FEC). Through her project ‘Play it Forward’, she’s rethinking how we connect and interact with the past – and she’s bringing these ideas directly to our students.

The project was showcased at the Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival in the Scottish Borders town of Hawick. This event is the UK’s leading festival for experimental film and artists’ moving image and known for its international programme of cinema screenings, exhibitions and live performances.

A community project

Play it Forward was built to ask questions about what archives really are, and used a new 16mm print of the Hawick Pictoral from 1966 as its starting point. This film was originally made by local amateur filmmakers between 1965 and 1980 to record yearly events in Hawick.

Instead of just watching the film, the project invited the community to engage with the print. Over three days of workshops, visitors were encouraged to physically change the film strip. They scratched the surface of the strip, added colour tints and cut the film up to rearrange the order of the scenes.

By the end of the festival, these collective changes created a completely new version of the film, which was then shown to the public.

Looking at archives differently

Lydia believes it is vital for artists and students to work creatively with old footage. She argues that archive material allows us to create a "speculative space" separate from what the images were originally meant to show.

By touching and changing the film, new ideas and meanings can appear that were hidden before, Lydia explains.

“It’s exciting because this approach considers archives as malleable spaces, open to (re)interpretation and remix, and where we might reflect on how contemporary interventions might orient an archive as future-facing, rather than historically sedimented or simply nostalgic.”

I consider this to be a form of contemporary archive-making and interpretation that centres the participatory, the playful and the collaborative.

The classroom as a creative lab

For our students, working with old film is more than just learning a technical skill.

Lydia brings her practice-based research directly to the classroom, ensuring our students get the chance to experience photochemical film not as an outdated technology, but as a living creative tool.

Her goal is to help students "cultivate an awareness of these distinct technologies and aesthetics as a form of creative language that is not obsolete, but lively, vital and open to hybridisation."

On our masters programme, this comes to life through opportunities like the Sensory Cinema workshop where students explore the feel, look and physical nature of film.

Students might also work together to make a hand-painted film as part of the Direct Animation Film module.

Beyond the classroom, the programme’s strong links with the Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival offer students a unique chance to witness first-hand how the theories they learn in class are put into practice in the real world.

The Alchemy Fellowship experience

Three students from our MSc Film, Exhibition and Curation were selected as Alchemy Fellows for the festival. They gained valuable experience in setting up installations, managing exhibitions and working with guests and artists.

Callahan, one of the student fellows and a 2026 graduate, found that the experience gave him “a distinct sense of community among the student fellows and other volunteers.”

Lydia echoes this, noting that the workshops reaffirmed “how meaningful it is to be together with others in a space, connecting and finding synergies between our research and creative practices.”

Alchemy expanded my interests beyond narrative film and into the realm of moving image art more broadly.

For Callahan, the festival was a place for both professional and creative growth.

“In the days leading up to the festival, I worked with the permanent team and other student fellows to set up the various moving image exhibitions according to the vision of the artists and the possibilities of the space. During the festival, I invigilated exhibitions, ushered for short film programs, and helped to deliver the dinner cooked by resident artist Luna Issa.”

And despite the busy schedule, there was still time to enjoy the Scottish landscape: “I even had time to go into the hills surrounding Hawick and visit with some friendly horses.”

Slowing down

Running workshops with school children, filmmakers and local residents taught Lydia something important about the pace of life. Working with physical film forces you to slow down.

"It sets a pace and rhythm that encourages one to slow down and to be rooted and responsive to the moment," she explains.

"Amid the often frenzied pace of our everyday lives, I think this has real resonance."

Are you interested in studying Film, Exhibition and Curation?

Combining critical thinking with experiments in creative practice, our masters in Film, Exhibition and Curation will help deepen your understanding of film and the ways in which it communicates with many audiences.

One of the first universities in the world to offer a dedicated programme in this field, Edinburgh is pioneering in its development of an active learning and teaching environment for the study of film exhibition and curation.

Find out more on the University of Edinburgh Degree Finder