A festival celebrating British film director Cecil Hepworth has been given sponsorship by the Arts Council Heritage Lottery Fund.

Riverhouse Barn Walton’s Hepworth Retrospective festival starts in May this year.

The festival will celebrate Hepworth with a series of events, kicking off with an exhibition entitled Hepworth Comes Home at the Robert Phillips Gallery from May 23 to June 10.

Multimedia displays about the work of Hepworth will include the story of Helen of Four Gates which was discovered in America just over a year ago.

It was previously believed it was melted for its silver content when Hepworth went bankrupt.

The exhibition will also display photographs and memorabilia from the British Film Institute (BFI) and local collections.

Helen of Four Gates will be screened at the Riverhouse on Friday, May 25, and at Walton Everyman Cinema on Saturday, May 26.

It will be accompanied by specially-commissioned music from the Elysian Quartet - who have worked with the BFI on other silent movies and performed to My Best Girl last year at the Riverhouse.

Simon Dray, who has helped design the exhibition, said: “It’s very interesting, particularly to those in Walton. He was universally renowned as a film pioneer and was a very important figure.

“I’ve found the whole thing fascinating, and before organising this, I didn’t know anything about him, apart from the fact Hepworth Way was named after him.”

A champagne reception and talk takes place on May 26, with music from the Surrey Brass Band and private view of the exhibition.

It will be followed by an open top vintage bus ride to the Everyman Cinema, Walton, for a talk by Simon Brown, Kingston University’s authority on Hepworth.

Julie Brown, a specialist in film music at Royal Holloway University, will also give a talk at 7.30pm on May 27.

She is currently running a British Academy-funded research project about fitting music to silent film in Britain.

Finally, on Saturday, June 2, at 2pm and 4pm, Elmbridge Museum is running Hepworth film workshops, where people can discover the significance of the Hepworth studios as well as the actors and actresses of the day.