Audiences in Forest Row were treated to a wide range of films at the annual Festival over the last few days, from the sublimely beautiful Encounters at the End of the World on Friday to the lunacy of Bugs Bunny at the end of the weekend. Now in its fifth year, the Festival has grown considerably and this year’s was the biggest Forest Row Festival ever, with a large music marquee on Forester’s Green, and dozens of stalls and events happening around the village.

We had lovely weather for it too, which meant that hundreds of people were milling around the centre of the village all weekend. Whereas in the past it was just about possible to go to every event, this year there were often several running concurrently, but all had good and enthusiastic audiences, and the film events were packed out.

One of the highlights of past festivals has been the silent film screening, and this year was no different. The village hall quickly filled up at Saturday lunchtime to see Buster Keaton’s masterpiece Sherlock Jr, brilliantly accompanied by Terry Davies. The children were still talking about it the next day.

Over on Forester’s Green, animators Joseph Brett, Glen Zimmatore and Leila Watts hosted a workshop in the Animation Station, encouraging children to make plasticine figures and then spend 20 minutes animating them (see their channel on YouTube).

Places were soon booked up, and we were delighted to be able to screen the result on the big screen in the hall on Sunday afternoon, in what was certainly Forest Row Film Society’s first world premiere! It was especially striking how inventive the ideas were, and also how funny the film was; it must have been a great experience for the children to hear a room full of people responding so well to their work. The film is now on YouTube, and we will have a second screening of it next Sunday (11th) before Kirikou and the Sorceress at 2.30.

The animation was programmed with a collection of films about Sussex from Screen Archive South East. Running for nearly two hours, the audience enjoyed a wide range of the archive’s films, several of which were again accompanied by Terry Davies, such as Watery Trail, a documentary made in 1938 tracing the course of the river Medway from where it rises near Turner’s Hill, through Forest Row, and to the sea at Sheerness.

A particular treasure was the film Scene on the West Pier (1897) by James Williamson, which testified to the importance of Brighton as a major centre of early film-making in the UK. This particular shot has an almost Renoir-like quality to it:

For variety, we included a short Pathé newsreel, Mac Pays Tribute to Kennedy. Forest Row is located close to what was the home of prime minister Harold Macmillan. President Kennedy stayed with Macmillan there in 1963, and visited Forest Row catholic church while he was there. After Kennedy’s assassination, Macmillan came to the village to unveil a plaque on the village hall commemorating the visit. The newsreel clearly showed ranks of press photographers outside the very hall we were watching in, and there was at least one person in the hall who had been there that day. There is a little more about the visit, together with some (poor) stills from the film on the village hall site.

Thanks very much to Screen Archive South East and Pathé for making the archive films available to us.