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Support St Leonards Film Society by Showing Off!

Good Friday brings a remarkable event at The Royal Victoria Hotel – a screening of The British Guide to Showing Off which has been organised as a fundraiser for St Leonards Film Society and Sara Lee Trust. The film is a documentary about Andrew Logan’s phenomenal ‘Alternative Miss World’ events. Guests are encouraged to dress up (in)appropriately and join in the fun with a red carpet walk. HOT’s Erica Smith caught up with organiser Dawn Dublin and asked her some questions:

Q: Can you tell me a bit about the St Leonards Film Society – how long has it been running?
A:
In March we celebrated our third year of operating and our second full year of screening films.

On Thursday nights (fortnightly) we show independent and world cinema at Hastings Arts Forum, a small friendly volunteer-run gallery space on the seafront. At this venue we try to screen films that often get overlooked by big cinemas, or just go un-noticed. In this way we’ve been able to screen some great films that had no cinema deal, which means we introduced our audience to a virtually unseen film and in turn gave hard-working film-makers a public screening of their work. Some films we’ve even screened before they eventually get a cinema release, e.g. Treacle Jr and I Will Follow or (thanks to foresighted distributors) at the same time as they’re in the major cinemas, e.g. Countdown To Zero, Soul Boy, Skeletons, Black Power Mixtape, etc.

We also run a Saturday morning kids club which is really popular. We run pre-film arts and crafts workshops and screen all manner of films from around the world, new and old, e.g. Laurel & Hardy, Toy Story 3, The Red Balloon, Eleanor’s Secret, Kirikou, and many more. We get great feedback about all of the films from both parents and kids.

We are hoping to run more mainstream and classic films, but we may occasionally be a little unconventional with those screenings, e.g. open air.

Q: What have been the most popular films so far?
A: Some of our most popular evening films have been Looking For Eric (our first ever screening), The Arbor, The King’s Speech and Chico & Rita, a beautiful animated tale of love and music. More recently Sound It Out, a film about the last remaining record store on Teesside. This is a great home-made film which we helped crowdfund. We’ve had so many requests for a repeat screening that we’re screening it again on 21 April – International Record Store Day.

Q: Tell me about The British Guide to Showing Off – why did you decide it would be a good film for a fundraiser?
A: Andrew Logan is creator of the anarchic and utterly outrageous Alternative Miss World Show, a spectacular costume pageant and fancy dress party for grown ups. The British Guide to Showing Off takes us under Logan’s glittering wing to take a joyous look at this most quirky and exotic subculture event and it features contributions from Brian Eno, Ruby Wax, fashionista Zandra Rhodes (who designed all of Andrew’s hostess costumes), Richard O’Brien, Nick Rhodes and Grayson Perry. Filmed over five years, charting the mounting of the 2009 show, bringing to life its history through newly discovered archive, exuberant animation, and plenty of offbeat humour from contestants old and new.

We thought it would be the perfect film to fundraise and have fun. We’re working with the Outrageous Decadence gang who put on New Year’s Eve events at the Masonic Hall, so you can guarantee the Royal Victoria Hotel will be transformed. We’re really excited to be using this venue and the staff are being great about accommodating our weird and wonderful ideas… like knicker bunting!

Guests to our event will walk the red carpet, as is fitting. There will be live music, DJs and photo opportunities.

Q: How do we get tickets?
A: Tickets are available online for £10 and £8 concessions. Please try to buy your ticket in advance, but there may be some on the door. We look forward to seeing you in all your splendour!

COMPETITION!
A pair of FREE TICKETS available to the person who emails: enquiries001@hastingsonlinetimes.co.uk with the best description of the outfits they will wear on the night. Competition closes at noon on Friday.

If you’re enjoying HOT and would like us to continue providing fair and balanced reporting on local matters please consider making a donation. Click here to open our PayPal donation link. Thank you for your continued support!

Posted 10:13 Wednesday, Apr 4, 2012 In: Film

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