Month: March 2018

New Dam Busters print rolls out on Lincoln red carpet

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The brand new high-definition restoration of the classic Dam Busters film is being premiered as one of the official opening events for the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln on Saturday 14 April. It will be an outdoor screening, so you might need to wrap up in warm clothing.

For the restoration, STUDIOCANAL went back to the original 1954 camera negative and sound negative. They have produced a 4K DCP, UHD version and a new HD version to the same high technological standards as today’s biggest international film releases. It is this print which will be shown for the first time on 14 April.

A number of other events are taking place that week to mark the opening of the Centre, in Canwick Hill, Lincoln. You can get full details at the IBCC site here.

If you can’t get to Lincoln for this showing of the film, it will be screened again in a cinema near you on Thursday 17 May, in a simulcast with the event that night at the Royal Albert Hall. Full details here.

And if you can’t get to one of those screenings, then you will be able to get a new version on DVD/Blu-ray/EST on STUDIOCANAL’S Vintage Classics label from 4 June, with extras including an exclusive ‘Making of The Dam Busters’ documentary (in which the editor of this blog makes a special appearance). Watch this space!

Captured in paint: portraits of all 133 Dambusters to be unveiled

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Six of Dan Llywelyn Hall’s portraits of the men who flew on the Dams Raid. Top row, left to right: George Deering, Kenneth Earnshaw, Charles Brennan. Bottom row, left to right: Tony Burcher, Alden Cottam, Floyd Wile

Artist Dan Llywelyn Hall has taken on an ambitious project to mark the 75th anniversary of the Dams Raid. He is painting a full size portrait of the last British man to take part in the raid, George ‘Johnny’ Johnson, and this will be accompanied by smaller pictures of all the other 132 Dambusters. Six of these are shown above.

The complete set of 133 pictures will be on show to the public between 14 and 27 May 2018, at the 4 Farm Street gallery in Mayfair in London (4 Farm Street, London W1J 5RD). Opening hours, Monday to Saturday 10am to 4pm. Funds raised during the exhibition will be donated to three charities nominated by Johnny Johnson: The RAF Benevolent Fund, Group 617 in Penarth and the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln.

Dan has a Crowdfunder appeal to raise funds for the exhibition, and anyone who sponsors him can qualify for a range of benefits including etchings and limited edition catalogues.

Dan was born in Cardiff in 1980 and is one of Britain’s most prominent young portrait artists, having been commissioned to paint portraits of both the Queen and the Duke of Cambridge. His work has been exhibited extensively throughout the UK in both solo and group exhibitions in venues such as the Saatchi Gallery, The National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of Wales, Windsor Castle, MoMA Wales and others.