Cinema City Cult classics & screen gems celebrated
WE’RE so fortunate to have one of the UK’s best cinema art centres here in Bristol, a great place to catch a film, food, a drink or two and it’s been my go-to place since I came to live here over 40 years ago.
Located by the waterfront where you can almost imagine the tall ships crowding the quays outside, The Watershed has a distinctively Bristol feel to it, but inside it’s an international forum for cinema. In 2016, Watershed was named as one of the best boutique cinemas in the UK by the Guardian, and sitting there on a sunny morning last week it wasn’t hard to see why. I was meeting Mark Cosgrove, (Watershed Cinema Curator) who founded the fantastic Cinema Rediscovered Festival, which kicks off this time next week from Thursday, July 26 to Sunday, July 29. Last time we met, he told me just how brilliant Bristol is for cinema.
“There’s a great love for it,” he said “from The Cube and 20th century Flicks to the lovingly restored White-ladies Road The Everyman.” So maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised when he told me that Bristol was recently named a UNESCO City of Film in recognition of its reputation as a world-leading film centre.
“It’s fantastic,” he said “Being awarded this galvanised the city’s whole film community. And that’s a big one – from Aardman and UWE through to the Bottle-yard Studios, Films at 59 and of course IMDb and the Encounters Festival. I’ve always thought of Bristol as a film city!”
It’s the third year of Cinema Rediscovered, a festival built on his inspiration a few years ago when he attended Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, an event celebrating the wealth of the restored classics of film. “In Bologna I was at a screening of a John Ford film I didn’t know that well, but the experience of seeing it in a cinema made me realise what I’d missed by only watching it on TV on a rainy Saturday afternoon.
“Later, I was part of an audience of over 5,000 people in the city’s Piazza Maggiore watching Rebel Without a Cause, and the experience was amazing. I know that at Watershed when I’ve programmed Sergio Leone or Kurosawa there’s huge demand, and the audiences who want to see these films are young – they’re fascinated by film and want to know more, and want the experience in a collective setting – a cinema!”
This year’s programme includes brand new restorations The Apartment (1960), Billy Wilder’s Oscarwinning subversive comedy which went on to inspire Mad Men, and a 20th anniversary launch preview of The Big Lebowski (1998). You can also catch two of Aardman’s earliest films Animated Conversations (1977) and Conversation Pieces (1983), which were originally commissioned by the BBC and Channel 4, and enabled founders Peter Lord and David Sproxton to develop the innovative technique of animating puppet characters to real-life conversations.
“The UNESCO award has brought a range of partners on board which has allowed us to extend the range of screenings in this year’s festival. I’ve always wanted to put on an outdoor screening and this year, we can finally do it, with wider support for the project.”
And what a project. On Friday July 27 Flash Gordon will show in a free outdoor screening in Museum Square, blasting out those memorable anthems from Queen. It turns out that the film’s director Mike Hodges, perhaps best known for the Michael Caine film Get Carter, is a Bristol bloke. He’s actually coming along to the festival, an amazing way to celebrate film heritage here.
Mark also introduced me to Alice Cabanas, who works at Watershed as Talent Executive for Film Hub South West, which is part of new strategy of The British Film Institute (BFI) to put more support into the Uk regions. He told me how in the old days everyone had to go to London to get anywhere in film. “I’d meet people whose passion had started by watching film in Bristol, locally here at Watershed, but to get anywhere as filmmakers they had to go to the capital”. As he said, you don’t know where talent will come from.
Alice’s role will bridge that, by connecting regional filmmakers to the new funding streams which were launched in 2018. “These include a short film fund and an early feature development fund,” she told me. “Both are run by the BFI Network, who distribute National Lottery funds for film, and will help regional film makers in the early stages of their career, without the need to head to the capital.”
Alice previously worked for Encounters, the short film festival which has been a feature of Watershed’s annual calendar for over 20 years, and tells me about Bristol filmmaker Dionne Edwards, whose short film We Love Moses was screened at Encounters and won the Best of British award. “Dionne’s now working
The UNESCO award has allowed us to expand the festival
Mark Cosgrove towards her debut feature film, Alice says. “And you know, she used to go to Watershed to see films and so screening and winning an award here was a big deal for her. I’m hoping this role can offer more regional support to filmmakers like Dionne when they are just starting out “
Alice added that she will soon be launching open calls for development activity at Encounters Festival, which will be focussing on new local writers and emerging producers. “I’m really excited about discovering new voices and helping bold stories come to the screen!” she told me. She’s definitely a great addition to UNESCO Bristol, City of Film!