Talking To: FilmBath
I think it’s safe to say that many of us have been missing cinema this year, an escape to a different universe is what we all longed for and it seemed as far away as Tatooine. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel in the form of FilmBath, the week-long film festival returns from the 11th - 16th December, showcasing some of the newest, cultural releases.
We caught up with Holly, one of FilmBath’s co-directors, to talk about overcoming COVID-19 obstacles, the mammoth task of setting up a cinema every night and why communal film viewings are better than virtual screenings.
How long in advance do you start preparing for the film festival? And how long have you worked for the festival?
The programming team start meeting in May and they watch about 700 films and there’s 8 of them. However, this May we were looking at things really differently and it was in May that I contacted other festivals to see if they wanted to collaborate and do an online festival which has just finished.
Then one of our team said why don’t we try and put a festival on at Green Park Station because it could be smaller but people are desperate for cultural cinema. There has been cinema throughout COVID but it’s often been reruns of what people have seen and a rare new release. It’s only places like The Watershed that screen the films that we normally screen.
When we found we were in tier 2 was amazing and the audience feedback has been really overwhelming, the emails I’ve been getting saying how glad people are that this can continue has been fantastic.
The programme of films this year is incredible! How do you choose which films you’d like to include on the programme?
It’s quite a complicated process – we normally screen 40-50 feature films and about 40 short films and this year we’re only screening 9; it’s a really different year.
There are normally some overarching aims that the programming team have to fulfil, a minimum 50% of the films have to be directed by women, we have a really strong LQBTQ+ strand and we try as much as possible to highlight films from the global south and those directed from people of colour.
Then it all comes down to what is available and what has screened in Bath before which is equally complicated. Whereas literature and music can programme things at least a year in advance, with film the nature of it we can only confirm what we screen 4 weeks in advance which gives us no time really to promote it. Part of the reason for that is because film festivals have a real hierarchy, so Cannes and Toronto are the big, international film festival and films wants to have their international premiere at one of those. Then they want a UK premiere at London or Edinburgh then once they’ve done that, they’re ready for their regional premieres which is what we screen. The films have to have their UK premiere in London before we can have their regional premiere in Bath.
The distributors are so focused on the UK premiere in London, they don’t tell us until four weeks before if we can screen their film.
So it’s three things; firstly, do we think the film is brilliant and want to screen it, secondly does it meet our criteria and thirdly is it available?
I know London is a creative hub but it is frustrating when there is so much more going on across the UK.
That’s so true and it’s hard in London to be heard across all of the noise because you’ve got film festivals happening every week. Also, you’ve got several cinemas screening these films whereas in Bath this will be the only opportunity to watch these films on a big screen.
Did you contemplate having it online?
The reason we run a film festival is because what we really love doing is showing these profound films with an audience because it is a completely different experience. Watching Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which we screened last year, with an audience was incredible. You can feel everyone loving it and it’s not the same experience as sitting in your front room.
Kind of like the issue with screening The Irishman on Netflix rather than giving it a theatrical release…
Exactly… you don’t commit to it in the same way. If you’ve bought a ticket and you’re watching it in front of you then you’re not on your phone or thinking if you should go make a cup of tea – you are completely committed to watching that film.
They’ve done an experiment where chimpanzees have watched something communally and afterwards they get on better, it’s a small bit of proof that a communal viewing experience is a really profound and it’s not just humans who are affected by it.
We really missed seeing how the audience reacted to the films we screened, you know we’ve screened some really tough films and the audience comes out and they’re absolutely silent and pale. But even with that you can see that the film has still profoundly affected them and it’s not necessarily always joy but it is mental stimulation and allows you to live other people’s lives and immerse yourself in different cultures and so it does expand your world.
Digital screening have their place and our virtual festival did really well but it’s not why we do what we do so we always wanted to have a real space if it was possible.
Miss Juneteenth is one of nine films screening at FilmBath this year
Are you excited about having it at Green Park Station?
They are amazing, Green Park Station, so supportive! It’s Ethical Property that run the station and they’ve just been magnificent. We have really great relationships with the Odeon and the Little Cinema in Bath and they’ve always been so supportive but Green Park have just blown everyone out of the water – they couldn’t be any more supportive.
Are you excited about FilmBath being slightly different this year – in terms of a large projector and people bring their own headphones. Has it been difficult trying to make everything COVID safe?
It’s been a huge undertaking and a huge amount of money; it’s probably costing us about £50 per person. Our tickets can cost as little as £4 but it does costs us about £50 per person per film.
If we weren’t socially distancing then you could probably fit about 400 people in there but as we are we’ve only got 150 people and so we’ve got to put out 150 socially distant chairs every evening and then take down a 26ft screen every night. We’ve also got to put in toilets and heaters, put up the signage and hand sanitising stations… it’s a lot!
We have to build a cinema every day and then take it down again that night.
50% of Amplify! Films this year were directed by women as well as a range of LGBTQ+ and Black voices– was it important for you to have a diverse range of films?
Before I came to the festival they mostly had films directed by men. I developed the F rating in 2014 which is a film rating applied to any film written and/or direct by women and it was then that we decided to promote 50% of the films directed by women.
Our commitment to diversity grows each year but the difficulty is, is what films are available and what films are people in Bath going to want to come and watch because we can’t afford to screen films that no one wants to see.
Finally, what film are you most excited for people to see?
I’m in charge of operations and not the programme and so the only film I’ve watched is Miss Juneteenth which was really good, I can’t wait for people to see it!
I’ve saved all the others to watch with everyone else on the big screen.
For the full schedule, click here: https://filmbath.org.uk/schedule