Sundance premiere for film inspired by Mass Obs archive
By: Alison Field
Last updated: Monday, 24 January 2011
Head of Special Collections Fiona Courage and director Kevin Macdonald in the Mass Observation Archive stores in the University of Sussex Library
A film made by two Hollywood directors and inspired by the Mass Observation Archive at Sussex is to get its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah this week.
Billed as an "historic global experiment to create the world's largest user-generated feature film", Life In A Day features the film diaries of ordinary people from around the world, made during one day - 24 July 2010.
Around 80,000 people uploaded their personal films on YouTube, a partner in the project, where the final 90-minute film can be watched live around the world as it premieres at Sundance on 27, 28 and 29 January.
Director Kevin Macdonald, whose films include The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void and State of Play, visited the Mass Observation Archive in the Sussex Library in July 2010 to film a short piece to promote Life in A Day on YouTube. In the film he says: "This place was the inspiration for me for Life in a Day."
Mr Macdonald had visited the Archive ten years earlier while making a film about one of Mass Observation's founders, Humphrey Jennings, and was fascinated by what he saw there.
The Mass Observation Archive is made up of diaries, letters and responses from ordinary men and women who have volunteered to comment on their everyday lives and express views on contemporary subjects.
While at Sussex in July, Kevin Macdonald met Special Collections Manager Fiona Courage, who showed him around the Archive and who was "directed" by the film-maker in a couple of scenes for the promotional film, which has been viewed by nearly half a million people.
Fiona says: "Continuing in the tradition established by Mass Observation, I think that Life In A Day is a really exciting opportunity to inspire a potentially huge audience from around the world to recognise the significance of their own experiences and record this for posterity as part of history."
Life In A Day has already sold out at the box office, but you can watch a live YouTube broadcast at 1am UK time on 27 January, or the recorded broadcast at 7pm UK time on YouTube on 28 January.