Rough Sea at Dover

Rough Sea at Dover (also known as Rough Seas at Dover, The Beach at Dover and Sea Waves at Dover) is an 1895 British short black-and-white silent documentary film directed and produced by Birt Acres and Robert W. Paul.

Paul and Acres shot the film in mid-1895, originally with the intention of showing it via kinetoscope. Projected, the film premiered on 14 January 1896 at the Royal Photographic Society in Hanover Street, London. This was the first public screening of a film in Britain and followed a month after the first such screening by the Lumière Brothers in Paris. Following its successful screening in London the film was taken to the United States where it was shown on April 23, 1896 at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York with a series of American movies made by the Edison's company.

Despite its simple nature, Rough Sea at Dover became one of the most popular and widely-screened early British films.

Synopsis

Une mer forte lance de puissantes lames à l’assaut de la digue de Douvres. Le film, prévu pour être visionné individuellement sur les kinétoscopes contrefaits, est enregistré certainement entre 30 et 40 images par seconde, ce qui, par la suite avec les appareils de projection qui tournent à l'époque à 16 images par seconde, donne un rendu impressionnant, dû au ralenti .