The First Camberwell Free Film Festival

Camberwell is to play host to its first Free Film Festival from 14–24 March. Films and film-related events will take place at different venues across the area during the period. The organisers say:

With the idea of linking movie themes with locations in Camberwell, the CFFF aims to screen hidden cinematic gems, unearth old classics, connect locals to their history and place Camberwell on the cultural map of London.

Highlights include a screening of Attack the Block, which filmed many scenes in the Heygate estate, along with a Q&A from one its stars, Leeon Jones; and the film with the most association to the area despite not having anything to do with it, Withnail and I.
There will also be a film quiz at The Bear, short films by local artists at The House Gallery, and tons more. It’s all very exciting.

Author: Peter

Long-time resident of Camberwell, author of this blog since July 2004.

52 thoughts on “The First Camberwell Free Film Festival”

  1. “The Wizard of Oz” showing at the Salvation Army World Headquarters, William Booth College, Denmark Hill, Camberwell, is a must-attend.

    There will surely be a queue of bemused, disorientated Situationists.

  2. “The Wizard of Oz” showing at the Salvation Army World Headquarters — simply, too weird.

  3. “The Wizard of Oz” showing at the Salvation Army Headquarters — The Darkside of the Rainbow

  4. The Tiger isn’t part of the festival this year!

    It’s Joiners Arms and House Gallery…

    The Remakery near Myatts Field Park will be showing cult French film “MicMacs” and the park itself will screen “Ratatouille” on the sunday 17th as well as serving the actual dish from veg grown in the plots in the park itself.

    Hopefully, the football night at Dulwich Hamlet FC will be popular…

    A rare chance to see “Orient for a Fiver” which is a great doc about Leyton Orient football club which lives hand to mouth and is fighting bankrupcy in the disastrous 1994–95 season. As well as “The Damned United” a feature film about Brian Clough and his bizarre, strange 44 days in charge of Leeds United — a club whose philosophy he despised…they didn’t play in the Corinthian spirit like the Hamlet — No.

    Football isn’t really the main story in both these films…it’s the people and relationships behind the scenes which matter — which is why they are such good choices.

    Also Hotdogs will be provided by “The Dogfather” which will be tasty.

    Go to “Camberwell Free Film Festival” on facebook for more info about all the others too…

  5. The Paul’s Olive conversation is coming along very well from the looks of things. I can’t find the original post, but does anyone know when it’s due to open in its new incarnation?

  6. @St Giles: It’s going to be a creperie on the right hand side, and a second hand furniture shop and cafe on the left. The creperie opens at the end of this month (ish), I have heard it said.

    If you can’t wait, I have the menu sorted for the next @homebytomtom supper club. It’s quite fishy but very, very tasty.

    Menu and booking here: http://www.athomebytomtom.co.uk

    I also got some lovely feedback from the first one: You can read about it here: https://athomebytomtom.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/feedback-and-a-pat-on-the-back/
    Half the tables have booked again. I must have done something right!

  7. A creperie, yes. Crept past that Tuscan home furnishings shop on the corner at the end of Bellenden Road last night — it is now “Quaint & Belle”, posh knock-knacks. At that moment, a Uden’s hearse went past, W1 UDN, a stretched Jaguar, nice, as long and black as the night. But it went past on the back of a breakdown truck.

    That’s bad luck — you’re on the way to the cremmie and the hearse breaks down.

    Like Uden’s sign, which is missing two letters:

    W… … UDEN

    Funeral Directors

    “Stop all the clocks”

  8. @Dagmar

    Nowt wrong with a creperie, it’s traditional peasant fayre and we all know how good that tastes.

    Don’t we?

  9. @Dagmar: Absolutely, Tidy. I love a good cwtch. Thank god I just found out my taid (that’s grandfather to you colonising buggers) was from the valleys.

    I can sing in a choir too. So it must be true.

    By the way, the Film Festival seems to be going down a storm. The pub quiz at the bear was packed last night as was the Joiner’s Arms. Well done Mr. Eusebiovic et al.

  10. Talking of Welsh, GWYNETH DUNWOODY LIVES! There is much excitement about the dead skeletons found beneath Charterhouse during the Crossrail tunneling. The clay from the burrowing, in massive amounts, passes through Camberwell every day and the hardworking Class 66 that tows the most is none other than 66718 “Gwyneth Dunwoody”, named after the old Labour heroine.

    Our Campaign for Real Women holds her dear in these days of plastic politicians. Cameron, Clegg and Miliband no doubt do a good job and know lots of things, but they are like cut-out figures for you to dress with different ties and haircuts.

    A couple of weeks ago there was a big feature in ES magazine about the Crossrail tunneling.

    http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/esmagazine/londons-crossrail-welcome-to-the-underworld-8524774.html

    So let us salute the spirit of GWYNETH DUNWOODY, somewhere out of town still building the new Jerusalem with the subterranean clay of the London basin that passes through our parish every day.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwyneth_Dunwoody

    The following is the obituary from the Telegraph, not from the Guardian.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1895921/Gwyneth-Dunwoody.html

  11. Don’t know much about Welsh, or Gwyneth, or Crossrail, but this exhibit at the South London Gallery looks well worth a look:

    http://www.urban75.org/blog/pae-white-spins-out-mesmerising-yarn-patterns-at-the-south-london-gallery-camberwell-london/

    It’s great that the film festival is going well. I guess at some point I should see “Withnail and I” all the way through, and properly concentrating. If ever you search “Camberwell” on Twitter you get untold Camberwell Carrot references.

    The Camberwell Shorts at House Cafe tomorrow night might suit my attention span better. Although as regards the advertised networking opportunities, what would I say? “Want to invest in my film?”

  12. What are you offering, Gabe? You make, shall we say, ho-ho-ho films? Why not? Spring is almost here. And some magi think that enjoying life is a serious moral and spiritual duty.

    What do you look like?

    Do you have, shall we say, what it takes? Me, Maude and Grace would like to know. And maybe know you better.

    So?

  13. Anyone know when the Denmark Hill station upgrade (“Step free from Summer 2012”) is going to be done?

  14. Sloth, no idea about the station.

    It was very friggin’ annoying when you had to do a half mile roundtrip to use an oyster card there. Is that still the setup?

    My movie idea is still Top Secret. It’s so good I can’t tell anyone about it. With regret, I’ll skip the networking tonight.

  15. “Top Secret”. I like the title, quite naughty. I can see legs in fishnets on the movie poster.

  16. The coolest car in Camberwell at the moment has to be that black Mark III BMW 3 Series 4‑door at the bottom of Grove Lane near the Kerfield. Its totally non-BMW-Approved white race wheels with super lo-pro tyres and lowered, in fact flattened, suspension is so cheap, nasty and cool.

    The stickers are great: NO FAT CHICKS, CAR WILL SCRAPE and for BLACK FLAG and THE DESCENDENTS early American surf/skate/punk bands. The car never seems to move but is great street theatre/furniture.

    There has been a strange development on the pub planning status front.

    http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/drinkers-at-the–ivy-house-use-law-to-save-their-pub-8540278.html

  17. In spirit, I was there.

    I’ve just read Brixton Rock by Alex Wheatle. Good book.

    It’s set in 1979 with the main character (16-year old Brenton Brown) housed at a social services halfway-house on Camberwell Grove.

    One interesting thing is what hasn’t changed in the 30-odd years since. Buses 68 and 45 still go the same places. Ruskin Park, Kings Hospital. All exactly the same.

    East of Acre Lane and Dirty South by the same author are even better. Should be made into a movie.

  18. Today was the end of Camberwell Free Film Festival 2013 🙁

    It’s been a huge success with a full house at practically every venue…which confirmed to me that there is an appetite and enthusiasm for this sort of thing around Camberwell (I always knew it was there)

    It’s been bloody hard work but I think we got some momentum going and that more than a few who attended discovered a little corner of their local area which was unknown to them beforehand.

    Which makes the whole thing very rewarding and satisfying…

    Anyway, I’m off to bed for a week

    Thank You All

    I drink my tea

  19. @Eusebiovic

    Well done sir! It was a cracking week. Got to see the inside of the Sally Army, and eat some great cakes. The cupcake with the wicked witches legs underneath was genius!

    I can’t wait for next year. I can only get better.

  20. Big game at Dulwich Hamlet FC tomorrow night — it’s the top of the table clash with Maidstone United which will go some way to settling who wins the league. Should be a bumper crowd as well.

    Dulwich will be looking for revenge for the reverse fixture at Maidstone where they uncharacteristically got spanked 5–0 earlier in the season. But the team has been flying ever since, and got a 3–0 win in the snow this Saturday.

    And a pint is only £2.50 in the clubhouse before the game.

  21. @Ben

    Indeed! Support your local football team…is what I say…

    Top of the table clash — If Dulwich win they might go on to be champions and get automatic promotion — they have lost out in the playoffs 3 years running.

  22. The cold has been harsh on the crocuses, hasn’t it? Even the normally dependable displays in Brunswick Gardens & Grove Lane have struggled. Not to worry, I’ve seen the first of the cherry blossoms this morning.

  23. @Chunters

    The words “Daily Mail” should have given you a pointer…

    As Evelyn Waugh once wrote

    “News is what a chap who doesn’t care much about anything at all wants to read. And it’s only news until he’s read it, after that it’s dead”

  24. Don’t they say happiness scales according to relative wealth?

    In which case, could be true. SE London is less wealthy, and there is great inequality. People are working their nuts off, without sufficient reward, and are faced with great uncertainty about housing, jobs, education, etc. Yeah, I’d be less happy (smug?) than a middle class doctor/teacher/stockbroker in Harrogate too.

    Edit: there were massive riots a couple years ago. That tells you something.

  25. I thought a lot of those photographs of Harrogate were of Camberwell — the parks, Grove Lane and Camberwell Grove, St Giles church. Harrogate is nice but it’s a long way to anywhere interesting.

  26. @Chunters

    Nope, the story still sucks…

    The Independent…another spineless publication!

    I don’t see how anybody can write an article and compare a pretty petit-bourgeoise market/spa town in Yorkshire with the highly complex cheek by jowl — macroeconomic environment of London and it’s own perculiar geography.

    Where do you begin and end? How do you create something accurate out of that?

    Something Smells…

    Thank You All

    I drink my tea

  27. Komrade Eusebiovic, your utterance is made of the finest people’s steel! Let it be erected by The People’s Committee as a monument on Camberwell Green, cast in giant letters thus:

    THIS IS A HIGHLY COMPLEX CHEEK-BY-JOWL MACROECONOMIC LONDON ENVIRONMENT

    Those pix of Harrogate belong, indeed, to the exterior of the biscuit tin of petit-bourgeois introversion.

    We may now — thanks to your good work — rejoice in the scruffiness — the word “crunchiness” has been used by citizens of Camberwell — of our Environment and its complex social promiscuousness as delineated in Trotsky’s “MEMO ON PROLETARIAN URBAN RADICALISM IN SE5”.

    LONG LIVE THE SOVIET!

    LONG LIVE THE STEPPE, TUNDRA AND TAIGA!

    LONG LIVE THE AUSTERE, GREY SOVIET WEATHER AND ITS VICTORY OVER THE NEO-TUSCAN BOURGEOIS SPRING AS PEDDLED BY THE ROMANTIC POET “DAYLIGHT” ROBERT BROWNING IN HIS CORRUPT VERSE “OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND”!

  28. The new crepe place in Paul’s Olive Shop opens today. Walked past earlier and had a quick chat with the owner/staff as they were setting up — doors open at 5pm. It’s called either Maloko or Moloka?

  29. @Dagmar

    As ever, highly amusing 😀

    I’m no Stalinist Soviet but at the same time I am certain that the Ayn Rand type zealot at the more brutal, extreme end of free-market principles — is most certainly not for me either.

    A little more Balance…seems like a good idea

    Probably the point that the Dalai Lama and those monks in Tibet are trying to get across.

  30. Just returned from Ruskin Park and noticed a large number of Crows, a Murder of Crows I think is the correct term. I also thought there was a real shortage of squirrels to throw my nuts at. Is this linked I wonder? Crows are meat eaters. Anyone else noticed this? For an Easter weekend it was empty of people, too bloody cold I suppose.

  31. I was complimenting you, Euse. You were dead right about the life & soul of Camberwell being easily as valuable as genteel architecture, chintz and tinkling tea cups.

    A nice post from old Chunters, too, on this auspicious day for the spirt of mankind, Easter Sunday. A murder of crows has eaten all the little squirrels in Ruskin Park? Possibly, but crows prefer carrion to meat — they carry off the squirrel pizzas from the road. My guess is the Roma are selling Davy Crockett hats on Park Lane.

    First thing out this most beautiful of mornings in our calendar, I saw a blackbird and a white pigeon. The air is fresh and super-healthy, with no slicing wind. Further blessings of the creation will be available at:

    http://www.selcamra.org.uk/festival/

  32. @dagmar

    Thanks for the compliment…after a few brandies it’s not always easy to tell.

    @chunters

    You’re right…I haven’t seen too many fluffy rodents about recently.

    But I reckon that the Squirrels are far too smart and industrious to allow themselves to be eaten in huge numbers by dirty old opportunistic crows…

    It’s this cold weather…under normal circumstances they would probably all have been out of hibernation at least a month ago.

    Either that or Lambeth’s pest prevention department have been doing overtime — I haven’t seen them about though… 😉

  33. Eusebiomate, you are my solidest friend on this blog. Shall thee to the bierfest at the Hamlet? I am thence — I’ll be the one carrying a two-litre stein of Tuborg. I will wear my fishnets. I bet I’ll catch you, you naughty boy!

  34. Pleased to say that Dulwich Hamlet beat Chipstead 2–1 on Monday…and dug out a very hard fought win.

    The players looked dead on their feet after 2 extremely tough games in the space of 4 days against Maidstone United (1–1) and Tooting and Mitcham (2–0) — the first they are equal at the top of the table with 76 points each but Dulwich have a game in hand. The latter derby match against their South London rivals meant that the players really had nothing left in them by monday afternoon.

    Still 7 out of 9 points is a great return…and don’t forget these lads have a day job to do as well as play some football.

    I take my hat off to them and hope our local team finally get promoted this season — without having to go through the dreaded play-offs yet again!

  35. Good news, Eusebio, our man with the pint of bitter and packet of Fisherman’s Friends. The Hamlet’s website, once again I find, is a bit bitty. Like, where’s the table and the info on what games they play next?

    Anyway, if the Hamlet are promoted, they go into the Ryman Premier, thence to the Conference South thence to the Conference thence to League Division Two (The old Division Four).

    Up north, they have an “Evo-Stik Northern Premier League Premier Division” at the same level as the Ryman Premier.

    In January, for various reasons, I went to see Welling play Truro City in the Blue Square Bet South (Conference South). It was a thrilling game. At half time, the fans changed ends. For various reasons, I was amongst the Truro fans — there were 11 of us in all, God knows how.

    Maybe there are 20,000 Cornishmen somewhere who’ll know the reason why.

    The standard of play is amazingly good.

    Come on, Hamlet! Be, don’t not be!

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