The region has a rich, year-round calendar of events and activities to thrill and excite. Here is a taste of some of the events you will find in, around and beyond Southampton Film Week.
UPCOMING EVENTS
BOB HARRIS & COLIN HALL THE SONGS THE BEATLES GAVE AWAY
Turner Sims, University of Southampton SO17 1BJ
By 1963 Lennon and McCartney had written so many songs they simply couldn’t all be accommodated on just their own Beatles releases. It made artistic and economic good sense to offer them to other artists for recording. The Merseybeat boom of 1963 & 1964 gave them a tailor made outlet, with artists such as Cilla Black, Billy J. Kramer and Tommy Quickly. This is the story behind those songs, the hits, the misses and the demos that the group never released: ‘The Songs The Beatles Gave Away’.
2023 marks 60 years since The Beatles’ first performances in Southampton. Join us for an evening of conversation and film with the BBC’s Bob Harris and author/music journalist Colin Hall.
‘Whispering’ Bob Harris, OBE has been at the very heart of UK music scene for the best part of fifty years. He has established a worldwide reputation as one of the most trusted and influential broadcasters of his generation. The Radio Times called him ‘…one of the greats of British contemporary music broadcasting’, and ‘a national treasure’ by The Mail on Sunday.
For the past 20 years, Colin Hall has been the custodian at John Lennon’s childhood home, ‘Mendips’. He has guided the likes of Bob Dylan, Yoko Ono and James Taylor around the property. He’s written two books on The Fab Four and presented a BBC Radio 4 documentary with Alexei Sayle titled The Lennon Visitors. Colin was – incredibly – in the audience at the Village Fete where John was first introduced to Paul..!
Colin and Bob have worked on several projects together before. This includes the upcoming film Pre:Fab (which focuses on the band’s early days as The Quarrymen), a WBBC production of The Songs The Beatles Gave Away and 2007’s Sony Award winning The Day John Met Paul.
Colin (Hall) is perhaps the world’s greatest Beatle authority. Bob Harris
Find out more here
THIS IS NOT A FILM CLUB x
Oxfam Music: November
Thursday 23rd November 2023
God’s House Tower, Town Quay Road SO14 2NY
At THIS IS NOT A FILM CLUB you vote for what you’d like to see. November’s theme is comedy dramas by the likes of Wes Anderson and Hal Ashby!
You’ll find out what film you’ll be watching when you arrive and you’ll be asked to rate the film as well as to contribute to a blind vote for next months viewing.
The doors to GHT will open from 6.30pm and the bar will be open for you to buy drinks and snacks. The galleries will be open for you to explore the exhibition Fetissoes by Kialy Tihngang if you’d like to and the screening will begin around 7.30pm depending on the lengths of the films selected. After the screening there will be some time for you to review, chat and leave your suggestions for next months screening!
This event is totally free to attend and GHT will be operating a ‘pay what you feel’ system at the end of the night. If you have a good night and can spare a few pounds they’d really appreciate it. You can also support by buying drinks and snacks at the bar! All funds raised will help keep these events free and will help to build a community around these events of people who love good indie film.
Suitable for ages 18 +
Find out more here
The Inclusive Film Festival 2023
Saturday 25th November 2023
Central Hall Saint Mary Street Southampton SO14 1NF
Early bird tickets on sale now!
The first Inclusive Film Festival will be hosted in Central Hall Southampton on Saturday 25th November. The festival is running 1pm – 6pm with refreshments available on the day. Launching for its first year, the Inclusive Film Festival will be showing a series of short films ranging from 5-15 minutes in length covering varying topics including Neurodiversity, Wellbeing, Mental Health and Recovery.
The idea is to promote how; through collaboration, the community have a voice and have stories to share that could help others in similar situations. By having a stage like this it allows their voice to be heard. Their stories aren’t always told in the typical fashion; these films are all inspired by lived experiences meaning they have been interpreted how the creator sees it. Some stories have been told through animation and some have been made as documentaries/ other genres aiming to be as creative as possible.
Find out more here
Past Events
Ayo Akingbade
Show Me The World Mister
3 JUNE – 9 SEPTEMBER
John Hansard Gallery presents Show Me The World Mister, an exhibition by Ayo Akingbade featuring two new film commissions: The Fist and Faluyi. Both films were shot in Nigeria and explore Akingbade’s interest in history, placemaking, legacy, and power.
Facing out onto Southampton’s Guildhall Square, Gallery 3’s floor-to-ceiling windows will host a photograph from Akingbade’s father’s personal archive. At seven metres high, the image is an arresting introduction to Show Me The World Mister.
For more information about this and other exhibitions, check out the John Hansard Gallery website.
Ocean Film Festival
TUESDAY 19 SEPTEMBER | 7:45 PM | 2 hours 40 minutes | 12A
The Ocean Film Festival World Tour features a new collection of the world’s most incredible ocean films, and is coming to MAST Mayflower Studios on Tuesday 19 September.
Brought to you by the team behind the Banff Mountain Film Festival UK & Ireland tour, this selection of seven short films combines breath-taking marine life and wild seafaring voyages in a cinematic celebration of our oceans.
Venturing to rarely explored depths of the planet, meet the surfers, paddlers, divers and scientists who have dedicated their lives to answering the call of the ocean. Plunge into the wonders of the big blue – without getting your feet wet!
Visit www.oceanfilmfestival.co.uk for the full programme, or head over to MAST to book. Tickets cost £17.00.
Windrush Caribbean Film Festival
TUESDAY 6 JUNE | 7:00 PM | 3 hours 20 minutes | 18+
Windrush Caribbean Film festival will explore the complex relationship between the big screen and the Windrush migrants from the Commonwealth through screening films from across the span of the 75 years of Black British Cinema. This captivating filmic experience along with interactive workshops and thought-provoking events, will once again highlight the artistic, political and social contribution of the original pioneers as well as their descendants who are shaping Britain today, forming their own cultural and political narratives and identities to shine bright in their own starry night. Screening at MAST Mayflower Studios on Tuesday 6 June.
The programme consists of six films, and a 15 minute panel discussion after the first three films on the nuances of the first immigrant experience.
A "Black In Focus" film night: Rye Lane
SATURDAY 3 JUNE | 6:30 PM | 82 minutes | 12A
Our friends at Our Version Media and MAST Mayflower Studios will be screening the hilarious and heartfelt Rye Lane on Saturday 3rd June!
From breakout director Raine Allen-Miller, ‘Rye Lane’ is a romantic comedy that stars Vivian Oparah (Class, The Rebel) and David Jonsson (Industry, Deep State). Two twenty-somethings both reeling from bad break-ups connect over an eventful day in South London. If you missed this sleeper hit in cinemas earlier this year, don’t miss your chance now!
Mettflicks Presents: The Nightmare Before Christmas
Thank you so much to all of you who came to our very first Mettflicks screening. After a successful launch, we decided to partner with Mettricks once again to schedule the next big movie night.
Coming up right after December’s Network meeting is Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas! Join us and watch Jack Skellington’s adventure through Halloweentown as he unravels the joys of Christmas. And what’s better than a Tim Burton movie? A Tim Burton movie with a cocktail!
Tickets cost £15 plus booking fee, which includes a free cocktail!
7:00PM – 10:00PM, Tuesday 13 December
John Hansard Gallery: Liza Sylvestre, asweetsea
This autumn, John Hansard Gallery presents a new exhibition by artist Liza Sylvestre.
asweetsea explores what it means to communicate. The first solo show by artist Liza Sylvestre outside of the United States, asweetsea comprises newly commissioned moving image, together with drawings, sculptures and audio works.
As an artist who is deaf, and whose child and partner are both hearing, Sylvestre tries to locate where her disability lives within their family structure. Through her work, Sylvestre investigates the complicated edges of distinctions. What does hearing mean? What does deafness mean? What does disability mean? Where do these things begin and end?
The exhibition will run from 8 October until 14 January at John Hansard Gallery, more information is available on the JHG website.
City Eye Hub Room: Black History Month
To commemorate Black History Month in October, City Eye will be screening a programme of short films in its hub room. Similar to the screenings for International Women’s Day and Southampton Pride, the programme will be on repeat in the hub room throughout October, available at no cost for anyone to drop in and stay for as long as they like.
The programme consists of seven short documentaries from the Film Week back catalogue and from local filmmakers.
For the full programme, head over to the City Eye website.
Mettflicks presents: The Great Gatsby
You are formally invited to the inaugural Mettflicks Screening upstairs in The Attic at Mettricks Guildhall.
We are really excited to be partnering with Mettricks as they host their very own immersive screening evening of Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby (2013) in the lead up to Southampton Film Week, on Thursday 18 October.
“Nick Carraway, a World War I veteran who moves to New York with the hope of making it big, finds himself attracted to Jay Gatsby and his flamboyant lifestyle.”
Tickets will be £15 per person plus booking fee, and include entrance to the Attic & Screening, a cocktail (or mocktail) from our Craft Cocktail Menu, and unlimited, fresh pop-corn.
For more information and how to book, click here.
Turner Simms: Vaughan Williams Discovery Afternoon
SUNDAY 30 OCTOBER – 2:00 PM
Celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of one of England’s greatest composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams. Join David Owen Norris for a special discovery afternoon of music, insights and discussion.
You will be the first to hear new arrangements for piano, chamber choir and ensemble of four movements from Vaughan Williams’s ballet Job. The one-act ballet is considered one of the composer’s mightiest achievements but is rarely performed.
The Discovery Afternoon includes a rare showing of the film The Passions of Vaughan Williams (winner of the FIPA Prix d’Argent in 2009). The film’s director, John Bridcut, joins the panel for the round table discussion. John has also made films on Parry, Elgar & Delius, and his recent film Janet Baker in her own words became an instant classic.
You will also have the chance to hear from Vaughan Williams experts on the composer’s life, music and legacy.
International Women's Day Short Film Programme
Screening in the City Eye Hub Room from 11am to 5pm Tuesday 8, Thursday 10 and Friday 11 March
Join us at City Eye to celebrate nternational Women’s Day with some favourite short films made by, for or about women across the globe, and submitted to us over the past 10 years. Films have been made by people from across the age range and at different stages of their careers. Each has something important to say and we look forward to sharing these stories with you.
The programme opens with 30% (Women and Politics in Sierre Leone) by Anna Cady and Em Cooper which, immediately prior to its selection for Sundance that year, won our own SFW: Shorts Michael Fuller Award for Best Film in 2012.
The programme has a running time of approximately 45 minutes, runs on a loop and includes 6 short films. All are suitable for people of all ages. This is an informal screening in our comfortable lounge area. Feel free to drop in and enjoy the films for as long as you are able to stay.
Ruth Maclennan
Treeline
In The Forest Something Stirred is an exhibition featuring two new commissions, Treeline by Ruth Maclennan and Natural Error by Rodell Warner. Treeline is on show at John Hansard Gallery on our Digital Array while Natural Error is available online.
Exhibition runs from 1 March to 28 May 2022
Treeline is a collectively made film compiled from hundreds of hours of footage of forests submitted by people across the world. From a patchwork of disparate individual contributions sent in by scientists, ecologists, artists and members of the public, Maclennan is able to trace a sinuous green line that stretches from the wild woods of North America to the rainforests of the Amazon as well as the myriad places in-between. Resembling a continuous horizontal travelling shot, Ruth Maclennan’s infinite panorama of trees is a vivid reminder of the swathes of green that continue to encircle and nourish the planet, and a powerful emblem of the shared resources and shared futures that bind people together.
Treeline is part of In the Forest Something Stirred, an online exhibition that also features a second new commission Natural Error by Rodell Warner. Each artist focuses on the flora and fauna of our natural landscape, and how it is being marked by climate change. Commissioned to coincide with COP 26, the UN’s Climate Change Conference which took place in Glasgow in 2021, the two works highlight the vulnerability of species in the face of the decimation of the environment and the loss of biodiversity.
Rodell Warner’s Natural Error can be viewed via JHG’s website: www.jhg.art
In the Forest Something Stirred is co-commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella and Forestry England. Supported by John Hansard Gallery, University of Glasgow and Arts Council England.
Making Waves Film Festival is Portsmouth’s annual film festival and short film competition now running up to their 10th edition in 2022.
Making Waves works in partnership with BFI NETWORK & BFI Film Hub South West, EUROSCRIPT, FILM EXPO SOUTH, The Wedgewood Rooms, and Portsmouth Guildhall. Their feature film screenings are run in partnership with No6 CINEMA, Portsmouth’s only independent cinema based in Portsmouth’ Historic Dockyard and funded by Film Hub South West.
An Our Version Media event for Black History Month
“Proud To Be” Black Stories Screening
Monday 25th October 2021 - 7.30pm @ MAST Mayflower Studios
The theme of this year’s national Black History Month (October) is “Proud to be”. That’s the theme of Our Version Media’s first ever community stories screening.
“Proud to be” will be an evening showcasing and celebrating stories from Southampton’s African, Caribbean and black British communities. It’s the culmination of a month-long Mobile Storytelling programme where participants learned to craft, film and edit stories using a mobile phone for the very first time.
Eight have taken on the challenge of making a short three-minute, made-by-mobile, “Proud to be” story about aspects of their lives in the city. Whether all eight successfully complete their videos in time for the screening is yet to be seen…
Join us for an evening of real stories, by real people.
About Our Version Media®
Our Version Media is a social enterprise dedicated to increasing positive and authentic representation of Southampton’s black and marginalised communities. Our Version Media is equipping the city’s residents with digital media skills to tell their own stories, creating mobile storytellers across the city to shine a spotlight on their lives, cultures, diversity and resilience.
Supported by Black History Month South, MAST Mayflower Studios, Mayflower Engage and Southampton 2025
Running Time
2.5 hours.
Hetain Patel Trinity Exhibition
3 August – 30 October John Hansard Gallery
John Hansard Gallery in partnership with New Art Exchange is pleased to present Trinity, the largest solo exhibition to date by the highly acclaimed artist Hetain Patel
Trinity is also the title for an ambitious new film by Patel, the final part of a film trilogy being premiered at John Hansard Gallery. Working with dance, martial arts and sign language collaborators, and with a specially composed score, Trinity represents Hetain Patel’s most significant film so far.
Alongside Trinity, John Hansard Gallery will also show the first two films from the trilogy: Don’t Look at the Finger (2017) and The Jump (2015), bringing together the different facets of the rich filmic world the artist has been creating over the past five years. The exhibition will also feature a number of related new sculptural works, which incorporate costumes, and action figures of the films’ characters, as well as a film merchandise ‘Gift Shop’.
For further detail visit jhg.art
