About Slapstick

Slapstick Festival is a cultural, not-for-profit limited company. Our aim is to keep silent, visual and classic onscreen comedy alive for future generations, through raising awareness, interest and appreciation of this unique art form, developing new audiences for archive cinema, and supporting the sustainability and development of silent film organisations, through screening well-known, rare and unique archive cinema to the film going public.

The Slapstick annual festival is held every January (Since 2005!) and gives audiences a unique and often once in a life time opportunity to see some extraordinary films in unique circumstances. We showcase and celebrate archive film predominately from the silent era (1895-1930), accompanied by live musical scores performed by world class musicians, and introduced by some of the most prominent film historians, experts, and comedians inspired by the comedy legends on screen!

Combined with more recent and contemporary visual comedy film and work from neglected comedy artists from past decades, we aim to broaden our audience base, inspiring peoples interest in onscreen visual and classic comedy from over the last 100 years!