Silent films with live music have always been very popular with audiences of the award-winning community cinema, Forest Row Film Society, which has encouraged us to extend our programming of these amazing films over a whole weekend.

Most will feature live music by Olivier-award-winning composer Terry Davies, and the weekend starts on Friday 3 February with arguably the first and best vampire film: Murnau’s Nosferatu. With its expressionist aesthetic and Max Schreck as Count Orlok, it has been described as “a brooding chamber piece of gothic ruminations and occult imagery, of the flickering light of the world waging a losing battle against the overwhelming darkness.” It’s essential viewing, even if you don’t normally like “horror”.

The following day (Saturday 4 February), Forest Row Village Hall will host two films. The first is the magnificent new restoration of The Great White Silence, the official film of the ill-fated Scott Antarctic expedition of 1912. Herbert Ponting’s remarkable film is a very moving testimony to the courage of Scott and his team, and is timed to coincide with the centenary of their reaching the South Pole on 17 January 1912. The film will be screened with the evocative new score by Simon Fisher Turner, using found sounds, and introduced by Jan Faull, film archivist at the British Film Institute.

Saturday evening is filled with a rare screening of Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc. With its stunning imagery and close-ups, Dreyer’s film is an incredible depiction of faith, suffering, and redemption. Drawing on the transcripts of the original trial, it is Joan’s pain and anguish that is its main focus, with Maria Falconetti giving one of the greatest performances ever recorded on film. Unsurprisingly, it has been described as “one of the most staggeringly intense films ever made. … it’s magisterial cinema, and almost unbearably moving.”

Finally, Sunday afternoon (5 February) brings The Adventures of Prince Achmed, the first animated feature film, made between 1923-6 by Lotte Reiniger. Loosely based on A Thousand and One Nights, this beautiful and beguiling film uses extremely fine-detailed silhouettes to tell its story.

Venue: Forest Row Village Hall

Local accommodation: Brambletye Hotel

More information: Programme and Further Reading

Contact: forestrowfilms@yahoo.co.uk

It is really useful for us to get your feedback since it gives us a great sense of how good our programming is, and helps us plan for next season.

How do we convert your rating into a score? You can read the simple outline of how it works on the BFFS site [pdf].

The scores for 2011-12

We’re looking for excellent, non-mainstream films that could attract a hundred people, so let us know your ideas and why you think it would be a good choice. Our programme is a mix of recent and classic films from all over the world, including some little-known films; we’re also on the look-out for great shorts as well, or films with some sort of local interest. As a rule, we don’t tend to show films that have been screened locally in the recent past, or which have have been on TV recently, though that’s not a hard and fast rule.

You may also like to look at the list of films that were suggested last year or for the 2009-10 season. We do keep reviewing the lists of previously-suggested films too; just because we haven’t shown them yet doesn’t mean we never will!

In an incredibly busy weekend, the delegates had the chance to see a great clutch of films, take part in some fascinating conference sessions, and listen to Ed Vaizey’s keynote speech. As Minister for Culture (etc) he is the member of government who is directly responsible for cinema and (from our point of view, most importantly) community-based, grassroots film screenings.

The conference sessions are always really valuable, and help to give us pointers and strategic focus to our activities as a community cinema. This year, the sessions focussed on volunteering, and we had a chance to think about how to encourage, direct and value all the volunteer efforts that sustain a community cinema cinema like ours. The big challenge with the weekend, though, is that you can’t be everywhere at once, since there are very enticing film screenings there as well…

The most well-received film of the weekend was Le Herisson (The Hedgehog), directed by Mona Achache. Based on the best-selling novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, it received a monumental audience reaction score of 96.7, and must be a very strong contender for next season (ie 2012-13!). The film stars Josiane Balasko, and the charming, UK-based Japanese actor, Togo Igawa, who was also the guest presenter at the Film Society of the Year Awards on the Saturday night, and took part in a Q&A session after the screening of the film.

Patrick Crawford and Brad Scott receiving the Best Film Programming award from Togo Igawa. Photo: Ivan Lieman Photography

The full awards list is on the BFFS website [pdf], and illustrates what an incredibly inspiring range of activities film societies and community cinemas encompass. We were delighted to come away with two awards, but also very conscious that there is a huge amount of expertise out there that we must learn from; receiving an award is rather humbling, and certainly can’t induce any complacency. If anything, it makes you realise that you need to raise your game even further!

The competition was really quite fierce, and the judges had elected to make several of the awards to two organisations this year. The first such was the award for Best Film Programming, which was awarded to both Forest Row Film Society and Bracknell Film Society. The judges look for the range and balance of films, as well as audience involvement in programming; last year we covered a huge and novel range, including the comedy film festival, the ongoing and exciting relationship with Transition Forest Row, and a number of other special events, which no doubt made a major contribution to the award. It is certainly true that, without the collaborations with other groups it is unlikely we would have won the award. A number of the films in the programme were also suggested by members, via the website, email and Facebook. We really appreciate all our members’ submissions and are embarrassed that we just can’t show them all. The Best Film Programming award is one we can all be justly proud of, and owes much to the hard work of the entire committee, the film festival committee, and Mike Grenville of Transition Forest Row. You can read our complete submission on our website.

Photo: Ivan Lieman Photography

The second award was one of the new prize categories this year. Recognising that it is the work of a large number of individuals that actually realises the success of all community cinemas, the BFFS have instituted a Award for an Outstanding Contribution by an Individual. Seven such awards were made this year, including a special mention for Forest Row Film Society’s Brad Scott. Finally, the big prize, the Film Society of the Year was awarded to the rather wonderful and inspiring Swindon Film Society.

Among the numerous films on offer over the weekend we caught The Way of the Morris, a new documentary notionally about morris dancing, but which is much broader in its scope than that. It is a very sensitive film about England, Englishness, the FirstWorld War, community, class and identity. And some beer. It would be ideal for the 2012 Forest Row Festival.

The other really impressive film was Sound it Out, a documentary about the last remaining independent record shop in NE England. Again, really sensitively made, about the customers and their stories, touching on regional poverty, job losses and the importance of music in people’s lives, it has creatively used crowd-sourced funding to enable the film to be completed, taken to the SXSW festival, and is now seeking a small amount of funding via indiegogo to better enable its distribution.

So, in short, an exhilarating weekend, and one which raises the bar for next year. We still have so much to learn. Come along and join in the journey…

I trooped up to Covent Garden on 5 August to take part in a filmed interview for the forthcoming NatWest Film First programme. This is a new initiative targetting special screenings at NatWest customers, and also supporting film societies and community cinemas, thereby:

giving customers the chance to experience film in areas which don’t have easy access to cinemas or multiplexes

One of the ways NatWest will be enabling this is by supporting the British Federation of Film Societies, the national organisation for all community cinemas. We’ve certainly benefitted greatly from BFFS advice, support, expertise and training over the years, so this is a fantastic new initiative.

The filming took place in the screening room in the Covent Garden Hotel on Monmouth Street, and I answered some questions about why film societies and community cinemas are important, and what the NatWest support of BFFS will mean for us. The interviews will form part of a short introductory film about NatWest Film First, which will be shown as part of some big outdoor screenings next month, and will also be online.

Check out the proofs of our new season’s programme [pdf]. We have a great selection of films coming up, including six silents, a new strand of matinees for a younger audience, plus the Transition Forest Row collection. We hope you’ll agree it is a particularly exciting range of things to watch over the next year.

We’ll be updating the website with the full details over the next week, so this is just to whet your appetite.

Thank you to everyone who sent us ideas and suggestions; as ever it has been really hard to choose and to create an interesting and balanced programme. Let us know what you think of the final choices, and keep an eye out for the printed programmes around the village in the next couple of weeks.

If you want to give us any other feedback on the season or on specific films, please add them in the comments box below the form. Thank you!

There are three ways to acquire a nuclear weapon: you can steal a bomb, you can buy a bomb, and you can build a bomb.

The Global Zero initiative aims to eliminate nuclear weapons, and the USA and Russia have committed to “a nuclear-free world.” As part of the grassroots support for such a move, Tuesday 21 June has been designated Demand Zero Day, and cinemas all over the country will be simultaneously screening the national premiere of the new documentary Countdown to Zero, which will also be shown in Forest Row Village Hall.

Following the screening there will be a live-streamed panel discussion consisting of anti-nuclear weapons activists, Global Zero movement leaders, Queen Noor, ex-CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson and producer Lawrence Bender, who will discuss the on-going urgency to eliminate worldwide nuclear weapons.

Countdown to Zero traces the history of the atomic bomb from its origins to the present state of global affairs: nine nations possessing nuclear weapons capabilities with others racing to join them, with the world held in a delicate balance that could be shattered by an act of terrorism, failed diplomacy, or a simple accident. Written and directed by British film-maker Lucy Walker, the film makes a compelling case for worldwide nuclear disarmament and features an array of important international statesmen, including Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Pervez Musharraf and Tony Blair.

• Date: 6.30pm, Tuesday 21 June

• Location: Forest Row Village Hall

A Transition Forest Row event

Official film site: http://www.countdowntozerofilm.com

The first ever film festival in Forest Row was a great success on so many levels. Not only did it inspire the best publicity campaign the film society has ever undertaken, and attracted a new audience who have not been to our films before, but the workshops, exhibition and special film events were undoubted triumphs. In addition, there was fantastic weather (so who wanted to be watching films?), and there was a buzz throughout the village with so much happening over the weekend (not just the festival). Thank you to everyone who came along and made it all worthwhile, and a huge thanks to all our sponsors and supporters.

The festival also was the first occasion for us to get audience reaction scores; after each film all members of the audience were encouraged to offer their rating of the film (from Very Poor to Excellent), which then translates to a score for each film. Unsurprisingly, the silent films with live music and the singalong Mamma Mia were the biggest hits, and The Big Lebowski was the film that most divided the audience. The high scores that so many of the films were awarded is testament to how much fun we all had.

Films

As ever, the silents were the biggest treat. Saturday afternoon brought us Keaton’s The General, with wonderful music from Terry Davies, who then returned on Sunday morning with Anna Cooper on violin and viola for a triple bill of shorts: two of Chaplin’s Mutual films The Immigrant and The Rink, and Buster Keaton in Cops in the middle. We could certainly do more of these films!

The other major hit was the singalong Mamma Mia, which is completely different from everything the film society normally does, so it was wonderful to have such a great and enthusiastic audience, including many people who have never been to our films before.

As everyone arrived, there was no escape: caricaturist Helen Pointer caught some of the audience and created some great film-themed drawings:

and lots of the audience came dressed up. Again, not usual behaviour for our regular audience:

For some screenings we were delighted to have special guests too. Shakespeare in Love was introduced by Stephen Warbeck who won the Oscar for the film’s score:

and comedian Phil Kay entertained the audience for Shaun of the Dead with tales of Simon Pegg and a voicemail message from Kate Ashfield:

Workshops

We ran three workshops, which was another undoubted success of the weekend. One was for under 12s as an introduction to stop-motion animation, run by animator and film-maker Joseph Brett:

A second animation workshop was an all-day event for a smaller group run by Canterbury-based Animate and Create, who created a Creature-Comforts-style film:

Finally, Pete Allen ran a film-making workshop over three weekends. The first couple of sessions introduced the participants to the basics of film-making, which was then put to practice in the final all-day session during the festival weekend:

A separate blog post about the workshops will follow soon.

The team

One thing we were all agreed about, and that was that it was a huge amount of work for everyone involved. The team was made up of several members of the film society committee, plus several others:

• Brad Scott
• Steffi Pusch
• Cathie Hubert
• Yolene Crawfurd
• Patrick Crawford
• Terry Davies
• Judith Gleeson
• Rachael Pereira
• Fred Doll
• Valerie Moss

Huge thanks also to Cathie Hubert and Mette Udsholt for advance ticket sales at Ashdown Gallery and for setting up the lovely exhibition of film stills at the gallery, which was curated by Steffi Pusch, and photos kindly supplied by Topfoto in Edenbridge.

Thanks also to all our volunteers, on refreshments and the first aiders, and to John Bradley for taking lots of pictures. Thanks to Forest Row Parish Council, Screen South and the UK Film Council for financial support, and to all our audience for making it such a great weekend. Let us have your feedback too.

And finally, check out more pictures on our flicker stream.

We still have some of our delightful festival T shirts left. Only £8. They make a great gift too. All sizes from XS to XL, men’s and women’s styles too. Email your order to forestrowfilms@yahoo.co.uk

Men’s

Women’s