Trash Cannes

Festival de Trash Cannes, 25 – 27 October 2013

The writer Ray Bradbury observed: ‘Ours is a culture and a time as immensely rich in trash as it is in treasures’.

Trash Cannes Festival director, Keith Rodway, seeks to combine the riches inherent in both – trash by name, serious by nature. It is an alternative, anarchic, eclectic programme of feature, documentary and short films with associated music, art and literary events around Hastings and St Leonards. HOT reporter Cathy Simpson reflects on last year’s festival and looks forward to this one.

Trash Cannes 2012 got off to a flying start with a programme that included a wide variety of films, as well as talks by Avatar financier and former punk-rock star, Duncan Reid (The Boys) and a fascinatingly insightful one by Lucy Brett of the British Board of Film Classification. It was a bold combination of both the cosmopolitan and the local, yet you were left with a feeling that this could only have happened in Hastings.

This year’s festival is more ambitious and ties in the arts with academia and literature; the majority of the films are documentaries, two of them about punk rock: so eclecticism and irreverence, coupled with a deep-rooted seriousness, are the contradictions at the heart of Trash Cannes. It also takes place against the backdrop of an unsuccessful bid to win UK City of Culture status, and is a defiant celebration of one of the biggest communities of artists, film makers and musicians outside London. Or, as Keith put it: ‘We ARE the City of Culture already!!’

Trash Cannes Festival 2013 will showcase work by international, national and local artists including The Rise and Fall of the Clash by Danny Garcia (Looking for Johnny, The Legend of Johnny Thunders), Daisy Asquith (whose documentary Crazy About One Direction aired on Channel 4 on 15 August) and a Richard Heslop retrospective. Also featured during the festival will be work by Lizzie Thynne, Jamie Palmer, John Sansom (Dressing for Pleasure), Paddy Bird and documentary filmmaker, Toby Amies, whose film The Man Whose Mind Exploded was given its world premiere at Sheffield Documentary Festival this year. Author and award-winning film director, Garth Twa, will deliver a talk at the Jerwood Gallery and there will be a panel discussion sponsored by the University of Sussex. Music will be represented by two new bands from the Hastings area, Caer and The Big Believe – and festival headliner, British Punk legend, TV Smith (founder member of The Adverts and now a solo artist in his own right).

The festival is directed by filmmakers Keith Rodway and Garth Twa, assisted by an advisory panel comprising Ben Browton, Peter Treger, Susan de Muth and Angel Rose. Trash Cannes is sponsored this year by Digital Media Print, Sussex University, Brighton Students Union, The Hastings Trust, Hastings Brewery, The Jerwood Gallery and The Brass Monkey.

Trash Cannes Festival takes place from 25 – 27 October 2013.  Further details and programming can be found here.

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