East End Film Festival 2010 Photo © Tanja Schimpl

Venice, Cannes, Montreal, East End. Now in its tenth year (22-30 April 2010), the East End Film Festival mark may not grace the front of film posters and DVD boxes around the world but this does not prevent it from being one of the most enjoyable events of the city’s cultural calendar.

Over 200 films were shown, offering a glimpse into lives as diverse as drug-fuelled mountain dancing in West Virginia (The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia) to the coming of age in a Laotian monastery (Today is Better than Two Tomorrows).

These films were beamed into venues the length and breadth of the East End, from Dalston to the Docklands. The sheer scale, ambition and energy of this year’s festival was colossal.

In addition to the bounty of films on offer, there were countless exhibitions, gigs, workshops, discussions and installations to add to the bazaar. The festival Filmmakers’ Centre was a hive of activity throughout, including the opportunity for budding auteurs to collaborate on the making of a short film in just three days.

Rummagers ascended into trinket heaven at ‘Give and Take’ – a plethora of free books, fabric, ukuleles, lamps and an assortment of miscellaneous memorabilia all brought along and given for free at Spitalfields Market. ‘East End Heritage’ generously gave people the opportunity to observe thirty years’ worth of East End photographic history whilst crawling around the bibulous confines of ten of the area’s oldest and characterful pubs.

Mindful of the election, a series of political films were showcased under the theme ‘Riot, Race and Rock & Roll’. Alan Miles’ ‘Who Shot the Sheriff?’ opens on the fervour surround the 1974 general elections where the National Front was polling near 10 per cent in Hackney. The walls of Shoreditch are daubed with ‘wogs out’ graffiti, Martin Webster’s growly promise of racial discrimination reverberates to the pumping sounds of Aswad’s ‘Warrior Charge’. The film charts the rise of the National Front, the Rock Against Racism grassroots movement and the subsequent battle for the soul of working class youth in Britain. The audience of the Vibe Bar on Brick Lane was audibly shocked as they watched incredible footage of the fierce battles, taking place mere decades ago, on the very streets that they walked on to come to the venue.

Activist and photographer Red Saunders screened a moving short documentary showing interviews with Holocaust survivors Leon Greenman and Esther Brunstein. The latter recalled how Nazi guards at Auschwitz told them “a few of you may survive, but nobody will believe what you have been through.” Through the spirit of independent cinema, these crucial tales can be given voice.

“I didn’t say that actors were cattle, I said that they should be treated like cattle.” And with that immortal aside from Hitchcock, there was perhaps no more appropriate venue for festival goers to be herded into than Spitalfields Market to watch his 1927 silent thriller The Lodger. Hundreds braved the chilly night to watch a crazed killer stalk the densely foggy streets of London accompanied by a suitably eerie live score from the quartet Minima. With few title cards in this film, the ambient melodies ideally complemented the rhythmic interlocking images on screen. To add to the mood of the era, boutique hairdressers Hair and Jerome were present with an arsenal of Do Rags, transforming spectators’ barnets into 1940s masterpieces.

A particular highlight was the screening of Rime of the Modern Mariner – journalist Mark Donne’s documentary ode to the Docklands at the inspired setting of St. Anne’s Church in Limehouse. Using the folklore and grand history of the area as a starting point, the film charts the decline of the once largest port in the world and the culture sinking with it. Featuring interviews with the ‘last Dockers’, the film is interlaced with impressive tracking shots and time-lapse photography and even takes to the ocean to film on board a modern shipping container bound for Africa. Surrounded by the soaring baroque splendour of St Anne’s, it was a fascinating insight into a crucial part of East London’s history. Steven Berkoff (born in Stepney) even turned up to introduce it.

The EEFF was looking further east this year with a wealth of Eastern European cinema. In Morfiy, we were taken to nineteenth century Siberia for a Bulgakovian tragedy and in Ya we were shown a nihilistic portrait of life in a psychiatric ward. Outside a screening of Crush, a collection of Russian new wave shorts, I asked festival goer Irena about the grim undertones. “In Russia, our famous authors are people like Bulgakov and Dostoyevsky – very analytical and not so light.” One short in Crush follows a seafood restaurant worker in a shrimp costume traversing Moscow receiving numerous beatings due to his advertising technique of kissing everybody on the lips. “Very Moscow,” she explained, “with the violence and the allergic reaction to forced capitalism. But if you look closely, the theme of the film is love! We watch a lot of British television so we share this certain dark humour.”

Przemek and Benita, originally from Poland now living in Barking were pleased that the EEFF gave them the opportunity to watch cinema from their native country. “You can buy food from a Polish supermarket but it is not so easy to see a film. In the six years we’ve been living here I don’t think I’ve seen one.”

There is certainly something peculiar to East London that encourages such an event to take place. Sentiments echoed by Fyzal Boulifa, writer and director of Whore (the winner of Best Short Film prize) who shot parts of his film around Clapton. “It’s encouraging to see people around here trying different things, peculiar things, and willing to collaborate, compared to other parts of London that are so impersonal. I lived in South London before I moved here and now my experience of the city is totally different. At this stage of my life, I wouldn’t live anywhere else.”

The East End has always been a crucible of transformation and it was a pleasure to attend the festival cocooned in the area’s most colourful haunts, surrounded by the town’s most vivacious creatures. Immortal, and ever changing.

Four Lions Cert (UK): 15 Director: Chris Morris Cast: Adeel Akhtar, Arsher Ali, Kayvan Novak, Nigel Lindsay, Preeya Kalidas, Riz Ahmed

It is hard not to find this film funny, hilariously funny actually. Chris Morris’s narrative shows us that there is a flip side to being a Muslim radical, as depicted through the misunderstandings of our main characters.

Some sections of the Islamic community may express outrage at some parts of the film, but depending on where you stand, you can interpret this film in one of two ways.

It would be possible to take the quite obvious comedy to heart and view some of the elements of the film as a blasphemous insult to Islam.

Yet it is also possible to see the picture as a study of what can happen when the teachings of Islam are misunderstood and misinterpreted. Either way, certain scenes are outrageously, if not stupidly humorous; the film has you laughing more than thinking when presented with some of the most absurd situations.

Set in modern day London, the plot revolves around a group of friends intent on becoming Jihad suicide bombers by sabotaging one of the capital’s biggest events.

They start out as a group of four, adding and losing members as the severe consequences of their planning begin to take their toll, and guilty consciences slowly sew doubt in their minds. As they try to make threatening Jihad-style videos and immerse themselves in the world of their Islamic brotherhood, they encounter faith-testing hardships of comedic proportions.

Omar (Riz Ahmed), who is the film’s protagonist and head of the group, attempts to go abroad to learn the disciplines of the Jihad, but instead wreaks havoc and returns home. Omar is aided by his best friend Waj, the bizarre Fessal, new recruit Hassan, and the cockney-speaking Barry.

Omar acts as the brains and the experienced leader of the team who nevertheless neglects some of the obvious consequences he knows would follow if they went ahead with their plans. His wife and child are equally deluded in their understanding of Omar’s beliefs, which further helps him to blindly pursue his cause.

Ahmed, who appears destined for a big career based on this performance, plays the character well and cleverly shows the right emotion between leading his troops and creating a personal connection with family.

Just as Omar is an Asian but also a true British citizen, his partner in crime Barry (Nigel Lindsay), is a white Englishman turned Jihad radical who is more of a die-hard than his peers. Barry battles with Omar for leadership throughout the film, adding another subplot and humour to a film that is littered with both.

The film does not hide behind its humour but also delivers messages of right and wrong, belief, unity and sacrifice which obliquely reference the teachings of Islamic radicalism.

With a hand held technique and some intimate framing, Morris produces gritty realism and a smashing picture that is funny beyond all belief.

In 2008, St Anne’s Anglican Church in Limehouse was the venue of a74 hour non-stop read of the entire Bible. It was also the site of a comparatively shorter yet no less ambitious event – the premiere screening of ‘The Rime of the Modern Mariner’.

Written and directed by journalist Mark Donne and featuring a live score by Anthony Rossomundo, it is a documentary ode to the Docklands; its rich and colourful past and its twilight years.

The beginning of the film roll calls many of the Docklands’ rum and curious characters of yore. This is folklore London, the haunting ground of such exquisitely named characters as Orsino the Enchantress, Black-Eyed Susan and the notorious Monkey Suckers.

At one point, ex-Docker Brian denounces the clichéd focus many people have on Jack the Ripper and the Krays and asks why nobody talks about the good honest folk of the East End. In ‘Rime’ he has his wish granted as the ‘last Dockers’ are put centre stage.

The Dockers themselves are given free reign to talk and reminisce about bygone days and this patient approach contributes the purest moments in the film. These men, all at least in their eighties, are the last living vanguard of a sunken Empire and their base, the Stepney Dockers Social Club, a living breathing nucleus of heritage.

In one bittersweet moment Brian jokes that these days one could spend more money on flowers than drink due so many of them passing away.

‘Rime’ is a visual banquet, its long tracking shots and time-lapse photography is reminiscent of films such as ‘Baraka’ or ‘Koyaanisqatsi’.  The filmmakers clearly spent a lot of effort combing the area for good angles to frame a shot (the stern statue of Neptune glaring from the corner of a building, the dizzying summit of a ship’s mast).

During the interviews with the Dockers, the camera occasionally spends too much time frantically lurching into and lingering around their faces but this is minor distraction rather than an attempt to oversell their fragility.

This is no mawkish Michael Moore-esque exploitation piece. There is clearly a sense of urgency in the making of this film, a last opportunity to capture the sunset of not just an area of London, but the way of life vanishing with it.

The unfettered access that the Maersk shipping company afforded the team shapes the major part of the film’s second half. Filmed at sea for over two weeks, we are given an audience with the ship’s crew from the cook to the captain.

The sense of melancholy and cabin fever come across as one would expect; we are told of sailors returning home from long trips and not being recognised by their children, the decline of shore leave post 9/11 and the general dilution of the jovial mess room culture.

But ‘Rime’ always manages to dovetail the mournful mood with lighter moments as the crew’s eyes momentarily sparkle like children when describing the sunsets, night sky and penguins that boost the spirits at sea.

The Dockers have often been associated with recurrent strikes and disruptive behaviour but one needs to examine the context of their battle. In the period between 1966-76 during the construction of Canary Wharf and the modernisation of the shipping trade, an estimated 150,000 people lost the only life they had ever known.

‘Rime’ is made with deep respect for its subject matter and makes no attempt to hide its contempt for the negative effects of the gentrification of the area. But ultimately, this is a film about change and the stories that are carried on the flotsam and jetsam of the Thames.

The Docklands was built on a strong code of ethics and loyalty – after the production of the film the Dockers presented Donne with a 140-year old gold leaf commemorative plate.

Almost hidden at the back of St. Anne’s, there is a resplendent black and white photograph of the inside of the church with the inscription ‘taken by the aid of the incandescent light only’. St. Anne’s is a gorgeous baroque church that all should be encouraged to visit on their way down to the docks to catch a faint glimmer of the past.

More on film.

Peter Capaldi in That Syncing Feeling Photo: Endor Productions

Peter Capaldi is wonderful as the everyman stuck in a lonely life. Temporarily unable to hear clearly when his ears fill with water in the shower, his deafness alienates him from society further still.

The glugging sounds every time he moves his head are familiar, as are his attempts to get rid of the water using a range of unsuitable instruments.

Also painfully familiar is his depressing job in a fast-food chicken joint, complete with motivational leaders and ridiculous chicken hats.

The sadness of Syncing is that our man must suffer his experience alone, waking up every morning in a bland hotel room, only a photograph of his lovely wife for comfort. Happiness comes when he is asleep dreaming of her – the only place where everything is in sync.

The bitter-sweet comedy of the piece comes from the audio shenanigans his ear problem plays on him.  First everything has the wrong sound: a drill as he turns on the tap, bullets firing when he does up his shirt buttons.

The only sound that cuts through the confusion is the crystal-clear song of a beautiful blind woman busking in a shopping centre. But her haunting melody offers little consolation.

Finally the madness reaches its apex as sound and action slip out of sync: the ultimate estrangement.

We end back at the man’s cold, empty house as he stares at a photo of his wife. Drifting into a dream he kisses her in the glow of the Christmas lights and we are touched by the warmth of his love.

Watch Syncing here.

Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

A refreshingly unconventional crime story, this Swedish film was originally titled Män som hatar kvinnor which in English means Men who hate women.

Directed by Niels Arden Oplev, this film is an adaptation of the first in a trilogy of award-winning crime novels written by the late Stieg Larrson. It provides a solid opening and gives the world a glimpse into some of the darker aspects of family life.

Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is a journalist unjustly accused and found guilty of libel, but before his impending prison sentence he is hired to solve the murder of Harriet Vanger, a niece of wealthy industrialist Henrik Vanger.

The murder, which took place 40 years ago, intrigues Blomkvist, who is helped along the way by a persistent but troubled hacker in the shape of Lisbeth Salander (played by Noomi Rapace).

The first hour delicately delves into the lives and the mindsets of the characters, gradually moving the film through the gears. The pace rapidly picks up in the second half: pieces of the puzzle are strung together through revelations in religious passages, photos and the uncovering of vicious murders.

Moral issues are littered throughout, which gives the film an uncompromising edge, felt through the challenges Lisbeth and Mikael encounter as they try to solve the case. They bring an unusual chemistry to the screen that only helps to add more complexities to a film that one could say has too many.

The best acting has to be that by Noomi Rapace, who expertly plays a straight-talking, erratic but intelligent young woman with big personal issues. She delivers a performance as ice-cold as her character demands and gives the film an unconventional spark.

The film pulls you in many different directions, as you would expect a suspenseful thriller of this nature to do,  whilst the Swedish setting is shown off  by some potent cinematography.

The film may have gone 20 minutes too far as the Hollywood treatment unwelcomely gets applied, and perhaps takes some gloss off the work done beforehand.

Men Who Hate Women was the original title that, if stuck by, probably would have been too much of a giveaway but at the same time, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo perhaps puts too much emphasis on Lisbeth as the sole protagonist, but as she provides the standout performance, it can be excused. Either way this film is a must-watch.

Rio Cinema
107 Kingsland High Street
Dalston

Tel: 020 7241 9410

Usherettes at the Rio Cinema

The Rio Cinema has been the longstanding centrepiece of both Kingsland High Street and the artistic institutional landscape of Hackney for the past 100 years.

To celebrate this milestone, the cinema called on local residents and the vast array of video footage stored in the Hackney Archives to create a cinematic landscape of the borough spanning the latter half of the century.

Jemma Buckley, who played a large part in organising the show, said hopes were that the project funded by Film London would reflect the content of the entire archive while being “a source of memories and history for the public to enjoy.”

The result is a curious mix of home video and council funded footage, opening with the ominous grainy images depicting the slum clearances of the 1930s, shifting to the grandeur of Hackney Town Hall and celebrations following World War Two and the council’s somewhat self-indulgent footage of their response to the housing crisis in the form of unspoiled, characterless estates.

All this builds to a heart-warming crescendo of home movie footage, with a flurry of street parties, children’s creative exploits and community fun days.

Revealing the evolution of Hackney’s architectural and cultural landscape, through the use of public archives and personal memories the Rio manages to paint an uplifting picture of an ever-changing London borough and its community.

Writer Mark Burton met children from Woodberry Down Community Primary School in a lively event organised by after-school scheme, Filmclub

Hollywood came to Hackney last week when writer Mark Burton (Madagascar and Wallace and Gromit – the Curse of the Were-Rabbit), met children from Woodberry Down Community Primary School in a lively event organized by celebrity-backed after-school scheme, Filmclub.

Pupils from six Hackney primary schools attended the event. It was held at the Rio Cinema in Dalston as part of the Filmclub Close Encounters programme, which enables young people to meet members of the film community.

Mark talked to the youngsters all about what his job entails, showed them clips from Madagascar with storyboards and characters, and answered questions.

Founded in 2008 by film director Beeban Kidron (Bridget Jones’ Diary: The Edge Of Reason ) and educationalist Lindsay Mackie, Filmclub offers pupils and teachers the chance to journey through the limitless universe of film, in an intimate and informal gathering through weekly screenings, online reviewing and industry events.

Free to state schools and easy to set up, Filmclub is fast becoming one of the most popular after-school activities in the country.

Since it launched over 2800 schools have joined the initiative – 29 from Hackney – with over 80,000 young people already benefiting from the exposure to inspiring and potentially life changing films every week.

It has proved to be a success in a spectrum of ways, including improving the enjoyment of attending school, developing critical appreciation and highlighting the entertainment value of non-mainstream films.

Recent research into the impact of Filmclub shows it has wide-ranging educational and social benefits, including improving literacy, boosting confidence and integrating isolated and disengaged children.

Filmclub regularly runs free induction and training sessions for teachers at venues throughout the UK.   Inductions are already taking place at Filmclub’s head office at 31-32 Islington Green on 8, 14 and 29 January 2010.

To sign up for a free induction or find out more about setting up a free film club at your school visit www.Filmclub.org  and click on ‘Want to set up a club’ or call a member of the schools team on 0207 288 4520.

More information on Filmclub

Follow Filmclub on Twitter

Filmclub was set up in 2006 by Lindsay Mackie and Beeban Kidron, and a successful pilot took place January-March 2007. Following funding from the DCSF a national roll out began in April 2008 and Filmclub was officially launched in June 2008.

Filmclub is funded in England by the Department of Children Schools and Families (DCSF), in Northern Ireland by the Department of Culture Arts and Leisure and Northern Ireland Screen, in Wales by the Film Agency for Wales and Skillset Screen Academy in Wales and in Scotland by Scottish Screen. Filmclub also receives generous support from Lovefilm, the UK’s largest online DVD rental company, which provides access to their film catalogue; Filmbank, leaders in non-theatrical movie distribution in the UK, and UK Film Council, the Government backed lead agency for film in the UK.

What Filmclub Offers:

•           Easy online sign-up, regional induction sessions, one-to-one support, advice & training

•           Thousands of DVDs available to order online – with free delivery straight to your school

•           Special events, screenings and inspirational visits by film industry talent

•           ”Stars & Sparks” scheme to reward and celebrate outstanding clubs & club members

•           Licensing that allows you to show films after-school

•           Thousands of great films drawn from over 100 years of cinema, including movies of every genre, style, nationality and era

Registration: For further information and to register for free sign up please visit Filmclub or call to speak to a member of the Filmclub schools team on 0207 288 4520.

In May of this year a 45rpm record, recorded as a demo for the Motown offshoot label ‘Soul’ in 1965, sold for over £25, 000 at auction.

The single ‘Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)’ by Frank Wilson, probably means very little to the vast majority of people, but for a small group this record represents a kind of Holy Grail.

The record that sold in May is one of only two originals thought still to be remaining in the world after Wilson is believed to have destroyed all other copies.

Contrary to his original feelings about his song, the record is loved and considered one of the most important of the Northern Soul movement.

Its significance and it’s uniqueness place it in a prestigious list, populated by far more well known artists, of the most valuable and rare records in history.

The passion for music that results in a single record fetching such a high price typifies a movement like Northern Soul.

The same enthusiasm meant that the small Northern Soul club Wigan Casino became so popular that in 1978, it was voted by America’s Billboard magazine, “The Best Disco in the World”.

The history of Wigan Casino is always surprising and very interesting, and for an unusual insight into the normally quite secretive nocturnal world of the all-nighters that happened there, a film by Tony Palmer called Wigan Casino, which for years has been doing the rounds on the internet, has been remastered and is being shown at SPACE Studio until 19 December.

Whether you have never heard of Wigan Casino or you regularly attend the annual Casino night now held in the shopping centre where the club once stood, Palmer’s film is an enlightening look at an important but too often overlooked piece of Britain’s musical history.

Wrong Rosary (Uzak Ihtimal) by Mahmut Fazil Coskun

Wrong Rosary (Uzak Ihtimal) by Mahmut Fazil Coskun at the Rio Cinema, Sun 8 November

The Bogeyman (Mommo-Kizkardesim) by Atalay Tasdiken at the Apollo, Piccadilly Circus

Taking a single strand from amid the bustle of Istanbul, Mahmut Fazil Coskun impresses with his first feature, Wrong Rosary. Musa, a naïve Muezzin, is smitten with his Catholic neighbour Clara after she rescues him from a broken lift, carrying a candle a la Florence Nightingale.

Musa later comes to work for Yakup, a bookseller with his own interest in Clara. As their three lives interlace, their interactions are most visible in absence: the spaces and pauses that divide them betray the feelings they are too repressed to act upon.

The camera throws these moments into harsh relief, often lingering on the hands, or withdrawing to observe furtively from a distance. Coskun’s relentless objectivity reins in a script that threatens to teeter over into sentimentality, and the frenetic pace at which he leaps from scene to scene means the sudden denouement, final and yet unfulfilled, packs a serious emotional punch.

An inevitability also runs through Atalay Tasdiken’s The Bogeyman, which otherwise contrasts in its languorous cinematography and – compared to Rosary’s muted tones – absolute revelation in colour. Events take place in a small village, where the young Ahmet must watch over his younger sister Ayşe after their craven father remarries and abandons them to their loving but ailing grandfather.

The ‘bogeyman’, whose malign existence inhabits the recesses of the storeroom and their imaginations, is a cutting and constant reminder of their childhood, while far more real and pressing worries pass over their heads.

Tasdiken uses mostly non-professional actors, whose rawness can jar at times, but it’s a small flaw in a beautifully directed film. There are scenes that stick indelibly in the memory, perhaps none more than the first, a long, wordless fixed-camera scene in which a donkey cart is loaded in blazing sun. The two children are revealed only when the cart rattles away, carrying their father. Showing more in twenty seconds than pages of dialogue could tell, it’s masterful film-making.

The better work, Bogeyman inevitably relies on the performances of the two children, who do not disappoint. Though both are admirable, it is Elif Bülbül as Ayşe whose wide-eyed credulity centres the film, so much that in the final act, a simple haircut becomes a moment of profound sorrow, with this correspondent reaching for his  ‘kerchief.

More from the London Turkish Film Festival.

The Rio Cinema, Kingsland Road, Dalston

It was built when Edward VII was King, in the year the first plane crossed the English Channel and Lloyd George unveiled the People’s Budget. We live in different times, but the Rio Cinema remains synonymous with Dalston after a century of welcoming cinema-goers.

This year, it celebrates that milestone by marking the time of its opening with an appeal for the home videos of Hackney residents to be submitted.

Opening in 1909, the then Kingsland Palace was just one of five cinemas in Dalston. Today it is the only one in Hackney, a survivor of the widespread decline in independent cinema and a reminder of the fragility of our artistic institutions.

The Palace was an immediate success in its day. Hackney’s working class, priced out of theatre visits and with poor transport links to the West End, flocked to the cinemas and music halls of the area.

‘The pictures are always interesting’, wrote the Hackney & Kingsland Gazette in 1910, ‘the humorous and dramatic elements being agreeably combined’.

The Art Deco exterior seen today has remained almost unchanged since its unveiling in 1937: a ‘remarkable’ work of ‘sweeping curves’ in the words of Elain Harwood of English Heritage, writing in 1994. It was Grade II listed by the end of that decade.

Despite, or perhaps because of, its unusual façade, the Rio sits surprisingly well amongst the mish-mash of styles on Kingsland High Street. The curved chrome door handles catch the eye, evoking 50s sci-fi classics like The Day the Earth Stood Still, rather than the modern titles that are advertised above

Last Thursday, the foyer was crammed with waiting prams, marking the success of the Parents & Babies screening of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs , one of the Rio’s many community involvements. Monthly classic matinees have great success amongst the elderly, and an estimated 12,000 children passed through the doors last year as a result of partnerships with schools.

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Over its century of existence, the evolution of the Rio has kept pace with the growth of Hackney itself. Interviewed in the 1980s, Robert Morgan, film booker for the Classic chain for much of the 50s and 60s, told of how during that period films were selected for the large black and Jewish communities in the area.

By the 70s, the cinema had taken a trashy turn, splicing mainstream movie weekends with blue movies and the occasional horror flick.

In 1985, Elizabeth Owen wrote in The Last Cinema in Hackney of her fears for the Rio after the demise of the Greater London Council (GLC), and its associated funding. Today, the Rio is still going strong as a registered charity.

Dalston’s local community continues to be well represented by the Rio. Fifteen years ago, London’s Turkish film festival began here, and will return in November for its latest run, having spread to multiple London venues.

The cinema’s Call for Home Movies has received extensive submissions, uncovering a rich vein of documentary footage. Submitters will have the ‘opportunity to watch their history’ says Jemma Buckley, who is running the project for the Rio.

Archival film has come in from Hackney residents from far flung places, including Trinidad, Poland and Nigeria. Those involved may have had the film for generations but never the projectors required to play it.

Film directly related to the borough will be added to those held in the Hackney Archives and shown to the public in a series of January screenings. To get involved, contact Jemma at the Rio: email jemma@riocinema.org.uk or phone 020 7241 9419.