The Charlton and Woolwich Free Film Festival is back again in September – but what’s in? PAUL CHAPMAN, one of the organisers, is here to put you in the picture.
Hard to believe that the Charlton and Woolwich Free Film Festival is already in its seventh year, but this September we are ready to once more go forth with our trusty (borrowed) projectors and screen free films to the citizens of SE7 and SE18.
The dates of this year’s festival are Friday September 9th to 17th, and we’ll be showing our customary mix of films and documentaries – some old, some new – in our customary mix of venues – some old, some new.
On the 11th, we’re showing the Billy Wilder directed classic THE APARTMENT, which reunited Wilder and Lemmon after the success of Some Like It Hot. The Apartment will be screened at the Assembly Rooms in Charlton Village. Two days later on the 13th we’re back in SE7 at the Old Library in Charlton House, where we’ve got the 1971 war comedy DAD’S ARMY, a film adapted from the classic TV series. The event will feature popular Festival recurring character historian Clive Harris, who will give an informal talk beforehand.
And on Friday 16th we’ve got a Bond classic at an SE18 classic, Shrewsbury House. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN sees Roger Moore accompanied, as you’d expect, by a fully licensed bar.
That’s three films we’ve already announced, but we can also reveal, exclusive in The Charlton Champion, three more films! On Monday 12th, we are back – after a long interval – at The Star pub in Plumstead. We’ll be screening 2014 comedy-drama PRIDE; the “you’ll laugh, you’ll cry” true story of LGBT activists and their efforts to raise money to support the 1984 miners strike.
A lesser-known 2014 offering comes to St Luke’s Church on Wednesday 14th, with TIMBUKTU, a powerful drama about a family and a city grappling with fundamentalism in Mali. In 2017, The New York Times ranked it the twelfth best film of the 21st century so far!
And for our third Champion exclusive, I can reveal that our Festival closer this year is the epic space opera, DUNE, at Garrison Church on Saturday 17th. Not the 1980s version where Sting dances around in his pants, but the 2021 version starring – like all new films in the last 18 months – Timothee Chalamet. Dune will also feature our old friends from the Flamsteed Astronomy Society, weather permitting, showing us the wonders of the night sky via their mighty telescopes.
There are more films to be announced, once we’ve dotted i’s, crossed the t’s and secured the licenses.
A lot of organisation goes into putting on the festival each year, and we can only show the free films thanks to the generosity of our venues and the generosity of our visitors, who add to our collection buckets at the end of the evenings. In previous years we’ve also been helped through sponsorship, most recently by Greenwich Council.
Sadly this year we’ve been unable to secure council backing (the fund had already closed when we came a-knocking). This will make this years festival more of a challenge, and if there are any potential sponsors out there who are interested in supporting the festival, with all the accompanying promotion and warmth-in-the-tummy-feeling that entails, then feel free to contact our chair for a no-strings chat via gavin[at]freefilmfestivals.org.
And so, all’s that is left is to say we really hope to see lots of you at a film or three this year. Please tell your friends about us, and point them towards our various accounts underneath this article. And keep an eye out for the final published events, we’ve got some real surprises lined up.
That’s all folks.
For more on the Charlton and Woolwich Free Film Festival, see its website at freefilmfestivals.org. Or follow it on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
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