Fifth Black Huts Festival of writing, music and film.

Black Huts Festival returns for a fifth year

The Black Huts Festival of writing, music and film presented by Etruscan Books is back for the fifth year running, hosting a wide spectrum of events at The Beacon and the Electric Palace cinema. Nicholas Johnson writes.

Scottish film-maker Timothy Neat returns to document Hastings and Black Huts, to speak easy and to show The Day of the Mountain.

Poetry is abundant. Join homages to Perthshire bard Hamish Henderson, Black Mountain poet Robert Creeley and Basil Bunting’s Briggflatts, with poets, lyricists, song poets, and an afternoon of Homer in Stuart Montgomery’s complete reading of Circe!.

Montgomery joins poets Maggie O’Sullivan, Tom Pickard, Jennifer Dunbar Dorn, John James and myself, Nicholas Johnson.

Joining the poets in concert is Grasscut, known for their three records, their work with Robert Wyatt, and the film shows that accompany their unique concerts.

There’s puppetry and a reading by Blurt’s Ted Milton, at one of the festival’s most unusual events: The 6th Finger Which The Other 10 Obey. There’s Rebecca Marshall’s film on a Siberian hermit.

There’s also a film by Old Town painter Roland Jarvis, (who died just a few weeks ago) and a special tribute in word and image to this much missed clock-maker, painter and late flourisher as a unique film-maker.

There is a basket of surprises from Gallivant and Edith film-maker Andrew Kötting, and film from radical Cornish film-maker, Mark Jenkin: The Midnight Drives.

Documentary genius John Krish is remembered. Krish worked with Humphrey Jennings – and Kevin Brownlow edited Krish’s I Think They Call Him John in 1964. Oscar winner Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo open the festival with a rare screening of their film Winstanley. This film about the Diggers is celebrating its 40th birthday. Singer and scordatura guitarist Alasdair Roberts closes it with a concert, The Evening Is Growing Dim.

Nichola Bruce made the film I Could Read The Sky with poet Dermot Healy. At Black Huts, she premieres her film poem Perihelion, culled from a 35-year archive of Hastings’ exuberant life: a lurching fishing boat race – buckets of water slung over scraggled children in bunting streamed boats – an old fishing boat at full steam with a water skier angled behind – skinny-ribbed boys jumping off the harbour arm and swimming to shore.

Black Huts Festival 26-30 October. Tickets are available from Hastings Tourist Information Centre, Cobblers to the Old Town, Music’s Not Dead in Bexhill, and from The Beacon and Electric Palace.

For more information, check out the Black Huts Festival Facebook Page and Etruscan Books website.

Also in: Arts News