Bristol Film Festival adds local film programme

The upcoming second annual Bristol Film Festival has just unveiled its Bristol In Focus programme celebrating the diversity of local talent.

On Friday, March 10, writer/director Patrick Makin will be present at the RWA to introduce the first local screening of his West Country romcom Happy Birthday, Toby Simpson (pictured above), in which the eponymous downtrodden thirtysomething’s life changes after his belongings are stolen at a local music festival. Listen out for plenty of Bristol bands on the soundtrack.

In collaboration with the Bristol Record Office, the self-explanatory Bristol’s History on Film (Sat 11, RWA) explores a century of life in the city. Immediately after that, there’s a free screening of Bristol Set in Print, a 40-minute documentary about the once-booming print industry. Down at the Arnolfini, Sam Storey follows his popular talk on microbudget filmmaking at last year’s fest with a lecture entitled Participatory Cinema: Community Filmmaking Approaches. Stick around after this for a panel discussion on the topical subject of Women In Film, organised in partnership with Knowle West Media Centre and their upcoming From Her P.O.V. project. The day ends with back at the RWA with the welcome return of John Miller’s Bristol-set codger caper comedy Golden Years. See our feature here for more on this one.

You’re probably familiar with the name of Bristol’s Bottle Yard Studios, where many a high-profile TV and film production, from Poldark to Sherlock, has been shot. But if you’ve ever fancied a nose around behind the scenes, you’ll be delighted to learn that BFF has three hour-long guided tours on Sun 12. On the same day, there’s a UWE Student Showcase at the RWA, featuring a diverse selection of short films by current students and recent alumni.

Finally, the impecunious may wish to note that the Festival also has free rolling screenings of six of the best recent locally-made shorts in its Short Film Showcase at the RWA on Thur 9 March (10.30am-5.30pm) and Fri 10 March (10am-2.30pm). No need to book – just turn up at any time and enjoy. Here’s the lineup:

Birthright (15 suggested – brief violence)
Dir: Charlie Steeds, 18 mins
In 2026, childbirth is only legal every other year. When Claire and her nine-year-old son are discovered to have broken this law, she must fight to protect her child.

The Downs (PG suggested – mild threat)
Dir: Tom Wheeler, 4 mins
Lily, a local student, abandons a plan to go out with her friends, choosing to separate at the pub and walk home by herself across the ‘notorious’ Downs…

Jungle Life (12A suggested)
Dir: Dave Young, 20 mins
Life in their own words: stories from migrants in the Calais ‘jungle’.

Not the End of the World (12A suggested)
Dir: Jack Bennett, 8 mins
Joe Connoly’s life is turned upside-down one morning by the arrival of a note. It appears that Molly thinks he’s cute. What does this mean? Is it true love? And who is Molly anyway?

I Should Have Run (12A suggested – implied threat)
Dir: Gabriela Staniszewska, 4 mins
One cold dark night, a woman encounters something strange and terrifying on her walk home. When it asks her a question, her sheer terror causes her to lie…with disastrous consequences. This one’s a bit of a corker, conjuring up a real sense of dread.

My Grandmother’s Sitting Room
Dir: Laure Levy, 12 mins
A filmmaker’s journey to document the extraordinary lives of the women in her family, and find the grandmother she never knew who was lost in the Holocaust.

In other Bristol Film Festival news, the previously announced screenings of Blackmail and Jurassic Park at the City Museum have been cancelled due to our old friends unforeseen circumstances, but the full programme of films at the Everyman cinema has now been finalised. In keeping with the Festival’s theme of tension, this runs the gamut from Hitchcock’s Vertigo to Cape Fear (Scorsese version), The Hurt Locker and excellent recent horror/thriller The Green Room.

Read more: Bristol Film Festival expands in March