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Local
film makers are set to take their place in the spotlight at the inaugural
Stafford Film Festival.
The week-long event (October 7-14), which will take place at venues
around the town, aims to celebrate films made in or featuring Stafford.
The festival has been organised by the Stafford Film Festival Partnership
made up of Stafford District Arts Council, Stafford Film Theatre,
Staffordshire University, Staffordshire County Council, Stafford Borough
Council, Culturegen and the Gatehouse Theatre.
Lottery grant
It has been made possible thanks to a £10,000 lottery grant
from the UK Film Council and Screen West Midlands, the region's film
development agency.
The Magdelene Sisters gets the festival underway at the town's Gatehouse
Theatre, in Eastgate Street, on October 7.
The festival's very own Oscar-style ceremony takes place on the penultimate
day (October 13), again at the Gatehouse Theatre.
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Proceedings
will draw to an end the following evening with a showing of the Shane
Meadows film Once Upon a Time in the West Midlands which stars Robert
Carlyle (pictured right).
Jane Cannell, chairwoman of Stafford District Arts Council, said:
"The Film Festival is a great achievement for everyone, especially
for all the diverse partnerships involved.
"It is fantastic that so many groups have come together to highlight
the wonderful talent as well as deep interest in films and talent
in the area.
"I believe this and many other exciting things happening in the
town will definitely put Stafford on the cultural map both locally
and nationally."
During the festival the Gatehouse Theatre bar will be transformed
into a film cafe for informal meetings and showings.
Full listings:
Tuesday
7th October 2003
Time: 6:30pm (film 7:30pm)
Location: Stafford Gatehouse Theatre
Civic reception/launch event (6:30pm-7:30pm) An invited audience
of guests will join the Deputy Mayor to celebrate the launch of
the first Stafford Film Festival*.
The
Magdelene Sisters (7:30pm) Based on actual events, Mulligan’s
powerful drama recounts the horrific history of Ireland’s Catholic
Magdelene Asylums where thousands of girls and women were imprisoned
and enslaved in the laundaries, to atone for their ‘sins’.
The film follows the lives of three young women sent to a laundry;
they soon discover the harshness of the nuns’ cruel regime
led by the austere Sister Bridget. The last Magdelene laundry shut
in 1996.
Wednesday
8th October 2003
Time: 12:30pm – 1:30pm
Location: Stafford Gatehouse Theatre
The Film Café (a tasty and varied programme of film
talks, screenings, displays, and presentations on week day lunch
times during the Festival week)
Time:
7:30pm
Location: Eccleshall (exact venue/location tbc)
The Time Machine (a unique archive film event that takes
the audience back, and occasionally forward, in time! Ray Johnson
of Staffordshire University presents this special archive film screening
that features Staffordshire residents and locations.
Thursday 9th October 2003
Time: 12:30pm – 1:30pm
Location: Stafford Gatehouse Theatre
The Film Café (a tasty and varied programme of film
talks, screenings, displays, and presentations on week day lunch
times during the Festival week)
Time:
7:30pm
Location: Gnosall (exact venue/location tbc)
The Time Machine
Friday
10th October 2003
Time: 12:30pm – 1:30pm
Location: Stafford Gatehouse Theatre
The Film Café
Time:
7:30pm
Location: Stone (exact venue/location tbc)
The Time Machine
Saturday 11th October 2003
Time: 1:00pm – 7:00pm (including ‘Staffordshire
Rebels’, see below)
Location: Staffordshire University, Venue F14, Beaconside Campus,
Stafford
Staffordshire
Film Open Day (open to everyone, a unique opportunity to see
behind the scenes at Staffordshire University’s Film &
Media School (Beaconside), a celebration of student film making,
an exciting networking event for Staffordshire film makers and film
enthusiasts including an opportunity to screen work and display
publicity information, and a range of other, screenings and presentations.
The
open day will also offer three different guided tours:
Television
Studio (including a ‘blue screen’ background set up…could
you be the next weather reporter?).
Digital sound studios.
Avid video editing suites.
Presentations
and screenings, and tours will run throughout the open day starting
every half an hour: 1:00pm, 1:30pm, 2:00pm, 2:30pm, 3:00pm, 3:30pm
Time:
5:00pm – 7:00pm
Location: Venue F14 Beaconside, Stafford
Staffordshire Rebels (Peter Cheeseman CBE, former Artistic
Director of The Victoria Theatre/New Vic Theatre, will introduce
a special screening of this famous local production featuring many
future stars of the silver screen…an local film event not to
be missed!
Christine
King, Vice Chancellor of Staffordshire University, will welcome
guests to this event at 5:00pm
Sunday
12th October 2003
Time: 12:30pm – 2:30pm
Location: Stafford Gatehouse Theatre (Mountbatten Suite)
Film Jazz Stafford Jazz Society present a programme of jazz
music featured in film as a themed event in their regular Sunday
lunch time live jazz programme.
Time:
7:30pm
Location: Stafford Gatehouse Theatre
The Hours In 1949, Laura Brown, a pregnant housewife, though
planning a party for her husband, can’t stop reading Virginia
Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway. In the present, Clarissa Vaughan
is throwing a party for her friend Richard, a famous author dying
of AIDS. As the film progresses, we see that the fates of these
two women are simultaneously linked to that of Virginia Woolf herself.
Monday
13th October 2003
Time: 12:30pm – 1:30pm
Location: Stafford Gatehouse Theatre
The Film Café
Time:
7:30pm
Location: Stafford Gatehouse Theatre
Made in Staffordshire: Film Awards An invited audience of
guests will attend an exciting evening celebration of Staffordshire
film makers and their films. This networking event and award ceremony
aims to raise the profile and reward local film achievements. The
category winners of the ‘The Fantastic 5 Minute Film Competition’
will be announced and rewarded during the evening. This short film
competition has been running since August and aims to encourage
and profile the work of Staffordshire film makers, and the range
of local films being made in Staffordshire or featuring Staffordshire
people or locations. Each winning film will be screened as part
of the ceremony.
Tuesday 14th October 2003
Time: 12:30pm – 1:30pm
Location: Stafford Gatehouse Theatre
The Film Café
Time:
7:30pm
Location: Stafford Gatehouse Theatre
Once Upon a Time in the West Midlands In the mean streets
of the West Midlands, shopkeeper Shirley (Henderson) is taken aback
when her boyfriend (Ifans) proposes to her live on a daytime chat
show. Watching her refusal is her ex-flame Jimmy (Carlyle), who
left her and their daughter Marlene for a life of crime north of
the border. When Jimmy arrives in town to win Shirley back, its
time for Dek to put up or shut up.
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