Striving to build connections between strangers, the Lonely Cinema Club have launched a short film night. We speak to co-owner Euan to find out more about the event on March 29…
Just for a bit of context, what is the Lonely Cinema Club?
It came out of sessions hosted by the British Film Institute and Flat Pack Festival in Birmingham along with the Broadway. They do this build your own film night which allows 16-25 year olds to meet up and learn about programming, marketing and development. From that we were able to pitch lots of different ideas for film festivals and Lonely Cinema Club is what came out of it, not just the collective lonely cinema club but the idea of screening short films and hopefully features as well about loneliness and the idea of being alone.
And you’re going to be hosting your first event, focusing on shorts, soon?
Yes! We initially wanted to do features, and then we were given the idea that we should try programming shorts first. I actually really enjoyed the experience of getting the shorts programmed as I learned a lot from the process. In the process of programming those shorts I was able to talk to a lot of really wonderful film makers and I am really excited about a lot of the films we are screening.
What are you most excited for?
We have some really interesting shorts screening, one of them being First Step Swim which is about a disabled woman who makes an autobiographical film about reclaiming the act of wild swimming. There is also a fantastic short called A Drifting Up which was shortlisted for a Bafta this year and it's about a man making a film about himself as he is coming off antidepressants. However, to remove the stress from that process he dances in public.
We have a screening of eight films which will be paired together. This will bring you from the experience of isolation all the way to ultimately finding connection and meaningful experience
Are there any other reasons you find shorts exciting compared to other forms of cinema?
I think there are so many films which will run for two or three hours plus and you think ‘this doesn’t need to be that long’ because a lot can be said in a short amount of time. That’s the potential there of it ultimately feeling really expensive even though the content is being condensed into ten or fifteen minutes. I think there is also something very interesting about how feature films and short films can complement each other. That’s one thing we would quite like to explore in the future and that’s pairing short films with feature films to have different ideas or complimentary ideas. That’s what I love about our program, it allows you to look at an idea in different ways rather than one mood or one theme for an extended run time
Finally, what can we expect from this upcoming event?
We have a screening of eight films which will be paired together. This will bring you from the experience of isolation all the way to ultimately finding connection and meaningful experience. We also have an after event that we are working on which will be about taking the ideas from that screening. Plus, we will also include a personals board, which historically was used to meet new people when we didn’t have phones or the internet. On the board you will be able to write down when you’re going to be at the cinema, what time you are going, and what film you are watching in order to meet new people. This is all in the pursuit of trying to build connections with people in a safe and friendly environment.
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