Exclusive: lockdown films made in Hastings

This week, along with a set of stirring film recommendations from Electric Palace staff, volunteers and friends, we have an EXCLUSIVE for Electric Palace enewsletter subscribers only - UNIQUE ACCESS TO THE RESULTS of the Trash Cannes Film Challenge May 2020! Here's Keith Rodway, director of Trash Cannes multi-disciplinary arts festival:

“This year's Trash Cannes Film Challenge was conducted entirely online, with subscription donations in support of the NHS. We received 16 great films, all of which can be seen here on our show reel exclusively for Electric Palace enewsletter readers for two weeks before it goes fully public.

Though not without its challenges (no pun intended), the online Lockdown Film Challenge showed once again the extraordinary creative spirit here in Hastings and St Leonards. We feel it is vital that this survives the current crisis, as creative endeavour is essential to our collective wellbeing. Trash Cannes is proud to play even its minor role in keeping this spirit alive. We would like to thank the Electric Palace for all its support, both now and over the last eight years.”

Watch this year's Trash Cannes Lockdown Film Challenge showreel >>

MEET OUR STAFF AND VOLUNTEERS - Nadine Hayward

Who are the friendly folk behind the scenes of our little cinema? Our Meet the Volunteers series introduces you to our fantastic team.

This week meet volunteer, Nadine, a regular London Film Festival attendee, who also loves live comedy and When Harry Met Sally - we'll have what she's having!

Meet Nadine >>

Recommendations from the Electric Palace and friends

FRANCIS BACON: FRAGMENTS OF A PORTRAIT - CHOSEN BY HASTINGS ARTIST KIM WAN

This week we invited Hastings-based artist Kim Wan, who exhibits internationally, to choose a film pick of the week and tell us a little about his choice. He chose Francis Bacon Fragments Of A Portrait:

“As a child, I was jarred by Lucien Freud’s portrait of Francis Bacon at the Royal Academy. Two decades later, I came across this film and had a similar visceral response. The brutality and violence of Bacon's subject matter has influenced my painting, and still permeates my work to this day."

In this seminal film from 1966, the art critic David Sylvester is in conversation with the painter Francis Bacon.

Kim Wan is a British artist of East Asian Polynesian and Western European heritage. He was born in 1970 at the Buchanan hospital, Hastings. Wan’s artworks are all painterly – whether it is the obsessive exploration in his series of self-portraits, or the heavy impastoed, painted surfaces on found objects contributing to large-scale major installations. He made a lot of hip hop inspired graffiti during the 1980s, and the speed and power of spray-painting has remained a strong thread throughout his art career.

In the UK, Wan has worked with museums and institutions such as the National Portrait Gallery, TATE Modern, the Institute of Contemporary Art and the National Gallery. He is a selected artist by international committee at the Florence Biennale and is represented in the Saatchi collection. Exhibiting regularly in New York City, recent shows also include Art Basel Miami and range from Berlin, Moscow and Beijing to the Louvre, Paris.

Locally Wan plays rugby for St. Leonards Cinque Ports Rugby Football Club. “It gives me a release for all the pent up emotion that comes with making art. I'm in the forwards and I absolutely love smashing into the opposition on a Saturday! Hastings is a great place for making art; the town has its fair share of eccentricities, and it's pretty chilled out. I have a lot of love for the town and it's people. I can't really say why I keep making art, it's just a feeling I have and always have had.....”

Watch Kim who played the main role in Rebecca Marshall’s short 16mm film ‘The Downfall of MightyMan’ shot on Hastings beach. You might even recognise some other local faces!

Watch Francis Bacon's Fragments of a Portrait »

WHAT IS HASTINGS XR DOING DURING LOCKDOWN?

Eveline Tijs of Hastings XR came to the cinema earlier this year to host a screening and discussion around the award-winning environmental documentary ‘Normal is Over’ about hope and solutions for the planet. She would like to share the following words and two helpful local links:

“I personally feel like people have needed this time to adapt to this situation. It has brought up a lot of anxiety, grief and relationship issues for a lot, while others have been enjoying taking some time to connect to family in a different way and do things they would normally not take time to do (like gardening etc). Everything is on pause a bit. We had a Greenwashing action planned with XR but this was postponed and our current question is: how can we all make sure the government and corporations are not going to use this crisis to push through policies that are focused only on economic growth while continuing with destroying the planet? There is a great local volunteer group (also on Facebook) H.E.A.R.T. where volunteers organise to help the community in this current lockdown and lots of small actions bringing the community together.”

Join the Korona Kitchen group on Facebook >>

Join Hastings H.E.A.R.T group on Facebook >>

ELECTRIC PALACE PICKS: ROCKS, PARTLY FILMED IN RYE

We were due to screen Rocks on Saturday 27 June. Partly filmed in Rye, Rocks was a hit on the film festival circuit. A British coming-of-age drama film from director Sarah Gavron, made with a mostly young, non-professional cast, it’s a vibrant portrait of loving female friendship and contemporary London life.

The film stars Bukky Bakray as Olushola, nicknamed "Rocks," a Black British teenage girl in London whose single mother abandons her and her younger brother Emmanuel, forcing them to fend for themselves with the help of her best friend Sumaya and others.

“It’s an empowering and powerful film,” says 16-year-old Kosar Ali, who plays Sumaya. “It shows what people go through – how women of colour are taught to have a hard exterior. But Rocks’s journey and everything she goes through, and how powerful she is with friends by her side… it’s beautiful.”

One of the refreshing things about Rocks is that the story centres on girls and friendship, not boys and romance. Look out for ‘Rocks’ when we are able to reopen - and spot the scenes that were filmed in Rye!

Watch the trailer for Rocks >>

FRIDAY NIGHT IS MUSIC NIGHT

Glenn Veness – Local resident and filmmaker was due to present his famous ‘Friday Night is Music Night’ on 26 June. He sent a few lovely words about how he got involved with the cinema after making his films about Hastings, and how his fabulous music nights began:

“For many years I was filming the Old Town, and making short films about our wonderful community. They never got much recognition, but were done solely to keep a history of Hastings and its eclectic inhabitants and local fishermen. I loved the Electric Palace when it first opened its doors in 2002, because it showed such wonderful diverse films, many foreign. This appealed to me as I'm not a fan of American 'blockbusters', many of which do very little to stretch the imagination. At last we were able to see thought provoking movies being shot by independent filmakers, some of them actually residing locally.

"One day the director of the cinema Rebecca Marshall, approached me and asked if I would let them show some of my work! I was astonished as I never felt my films would be seen on the 'Big Screen'. I felt 10ft tall when they showed them for the first time to a packed audience during 'Old Town Week'. After that it became a regular event once a year, and we would do three consecutive half hour screenings in one evening, all sold out!

The queue to get in used to go up pass Roebuck House. Rebecca still shows my films after all these years. I would like to thank the team at the cinema for bringing so much to the community and appreciate their commitment in showing not only films, but varied forms of live entertainment. I feel it is crucial, as while we can't always change the world, we CAN change our communities. For me this is far more important.

I now do 'Friday Night Is Music Night' with Mike Willis, a Country singer from Nashville. We have special guests each month and throw in a few short videos for good measure. These evenings are always sold out, too! So that's why The Electric Palace has been, and still is, such a big part of my life. Its support has made my world, and the thousands of people who use the cinema each year, a far richer place to live in.”

Watch out for future Friday Night is Music Night in future programmes. Past events have featured Blair, Siddy Bennett, Roger Hubbard, Andy Caine (fresh from three sell out gigs at Ronnie Scott's), Claire Hammil, Mama Josie and Chaz Thorogood.

Can you support the Electric Palace, too? >>

THE LAST THURSDAY FILM CLUB PICKS...

Another intriguing and fascinating regular pick by The Last Thursday Film Club. Dr Reekie from the club suggests:

"Nowadays the web is chockablock with video mashups and supercuts of found footage video. But if that’s too digital for you, then there’s still a thriving underground culture of filmmakers who physically mark and colour the surface of celluloid film. Like paper or canvas, film can be painted, scratched, bleached and dyed to create spectacular animations and abstract movement. Here’s an incredible short work by London based artist Autojektor. Can you figure out how it was made?"

Watch Basilisk on Vimeo >>

ELECTRIC PALACE RECOMMENDS: DAVID LYNCH DAILY VIDEOS

Sean Hollebon of our Young Electrics film programmers group recommends David Lynch's YouTube channel. The film director is adding daily videos to the channel, including some archive shorts:

Subscribe to David Lynch's YouTube channel >>

BECOME A FRIEND OF THE ELECTRIC PALACE

If you're looking forward to visiting the Electric Palace in person soon, perhaps you'd consider becoming one of our 'official' friends, by joining our Friends of the Cinema scheme? It comes with member perks and the option to donate to help us through the Covid-19 pandemic. Also, see all the lovely things people have said about the cinema and what it means to them, on our newly updated history page.

Upcoming films to book in the future:

Take a look at our listings to plan ahead for when we can host screenings again. Most of our current season's screenings are postponed rather than cancelled. We look forward to seeing you soon.

Download our listings brochure to peruse at your leisure.