Cinematophilia
About
We want to make a film. A feature film, which according to British Film Institute means our film must run for at least 40 minutes. We want to teach ourselves the grammar of film, its myriad crafts and skills, from cinematography, lighting and sound to editing, marketing, distribution. We want to understand the complexities of something that until now we have only ever marvelled at in the dark.
We want to explore the relationship between what we currently know about performance, about festivals, and about working together in fraught and meagre circumstances and this other, alien discipline of cameras and screens and imagined worlds. Can we make a film in the same messy, subversive, collaborative spirit with which we ran a festival? And what might doing so teach us, about cinema and about ourselves?
And so, we will make a film. In 2019 we will shoot this film, and we will invite you, artists, audiences, friends of Forest Fringe, to join us.
We will be amateurs in the world of cinema. Amateur comes from the Italian amatore (lover) and we are doing this for the love of it, for the love of film and the love making things. But we are also doing it because in that uncertain space between the professional and the amateur, between established live artists and hobbyist filmmakers, we believe there is the potential for another kind of work, and perhaps another way of living.
To prepare for this project, each month between now and Summer 2019, we will invite a professional from the world of cinema to host our monthly Amateurs Club, helping us and any other attendees to start learning all the things we might need to know that we currently don’t. Each standalone event will still be free and will offer a fascinating glimpse into the lives and work of a collection of people we love and admire. Places will sometimes be limited, so booking is encouraged.