Whitley Bay Film Festival unveils packed September programme
Ian La Frenais will welcome acclaimed filmmaker Nick Broomfield to launch a programme packed with classic cinema, documentaries and anniversary celebrations
Award-winning documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield will be the special guest at the opening of this year’s Whitley Bay Film Festival, which returns in September with a programme celebrating classic cinema, cult favourites and documentary film in some of North Tyneside’s most distinctive venues.
The festival gets under way on September 5 at The Crescent Club with a screening of Broomfield’s acclaimed documentary Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love. Festival patron and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet co-creator Ian La Frenais will introduce the filmmaker before he joins audiences for a post-screening conversation and Q&A reflecting on a career spanning more than five decades.
The programme continues throughout September with screenings at venues including Jam Jar Cinema, St Mary’s Lighthouse, Stephenson Steam Railway Museum, the Rendezvous Café, Seaton Delaval Hall and Cullercoats’ Fishermen’s Mission.
Among the headline events is a centenary celebration of Buster Keaton’s silent masterpiece The General, accompanied by a specially commissioned live electronic soundtrack from The Mediators at Stephenson Steam Railway Museum.
Jim Henson’s fantasy favourite Labyrinth marks its 40th anniversary with a screening at Seaton Delaval Hall, while comedy fans can celebrate 20 years of It’s Nice Up North with creator Graham Fellows – better known to many as John Shuttleworth – at The Crescent Club.
Elsewhere, Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove, Clint Eastwood’s Play Misty for Me and The Truman Show all feature alongside screenings of The Illusionist, Flushed Away and Enys Men.
Broomfield’s work also features beyond the opening weekend, with screenings of My Father and Me and Behind the Rent Strike at the Fishermen’s Mission in Cullercoats.
The festival will also shine a light on North East filmmaking through a double bill of Amber Films productions based on the work of legendary North Shields writer Tom Hadaway. The Filleting Machine and In Fading Light will both be shown at the Fishermen’s Mission on September 19.
The full programme and ticket information are available via the Whitley Bay Film Festival website.