Bath Film Festival Day 1
The grand city of Bath and its surrounding rolling countryside in Southwest England are both highly popular as filming locations, in particular for period dramas. The 18th-century architecture and stunning sandstone buildings have been used as backdrops in “Persuasion” (1994), “The Duchess” (2007) and also “Dracula” (2006). Even the location for part of Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films was filmed a couple of towns over at Lacock Abbey. Johnny Depp and Nicolas Cage have been spotted around Bath, drinking in the local pub and visiting the cinema.
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The Bath Film Festival was started in 1991 by the Bath Film Society and supported by other film fans and three cinemas in the city. (There are now only two, the multiplex Odeon and a smaller arthouse cinema owned by Picture House cinemas called The Little Theatre.) Included in the program, some of the screenings include musical accompaniments and guest speakers. Last year for the documentary “Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow” (2010), the Head of Sculpture at Bath Spa University held a talk with the director Sophie Fiennes after the screening. A few films are even shown in restaurants around the city and (weather permitting) outdoors.
When the festival isn’t at the centre of their agenda, the Bath Film Office, an accredited Film Commission, organises and ensures the smooth running of location filming in the city and local area in liaison with other companies. It is run by local people who love the city and have a passion for all genres of film. They now work in collaboration with local community programs to bring the cinema to those who do not have direct access and are supported by the UK Film Council. BFF is honoured to have Ken Loach and Peter Gabriel as its patrons.
For more than 10 years, the Bath Film Office has been bringing films that normally would not have been screened in Bath to the city and show films in more unique places such as outdoor screenings (a difficult feat considering the inconsistent nature of the British weather).
The Little Theatre
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This is one of those cinemas guaranteed to show that obscure foreign film none of the mainstream cinemas will touch. It is known in the local area (particularly with students attending the city's two universities) for holding specialist evenings showing, for example, classic horror. The Little is a very small cinema with only two screens and about five employees. The screens still have those heavy velvet curtains and black and white posters of Fred, Ginger and Bogart. You can even have your wedding here.
Ken Loach: Which Side Are You On?
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Two films by British director Ken Loach are being shown. It is Loach's 75th birthday this year. The first is “Which Side Are You On?” a touching documentary featuring a series of poems and songs about the miners' strike in 1984. Even before the screening started, tickets had already sold out.
This previously banned film has a sociopolitical theme that features the one of the worst point of Britain's recent history. Thousands of miners and their families fought against our only female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, as she set out to destroy the unions and the coal industry in the UK. Overall, 190,000 mines were closed and along with them the local communities literally came crashing down around the families that made them up.
This story is told by Loach about the miners' families, and he brutally captures on film many strikers being beaten by local police and suffering through horrific attacks of terrorism. Some villages were even taken over by police carrying shields on horseback.
The second film is one also previously been banned by the charity that commissioned it, “The Save the Children Fund Film” (1971), and was screened for the first time this year at the British Film Institute in Southbank, London.