On Saturday, 21 September the 10th Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival drew to a close in the historic town of Berwick-Upon-Tweed. Over five packed days the festival attracted an impressive 9,000 visitors to see the diverse range of films and events on offer, which included 75 new films from almost 40 countries across the world, including six world premieres across 12 unique locations. Over 40 artists and filmmakers in the programme travelled to Berwick from across Europe and from as far as Lebanon and Los Angeles.
A returning theme for this year’s festival was border crossing - a subject to reflect on the significance of the Scottish referendum as well as exploring border identities and transcending boundaries all over the world. Fittingly, the festival undertook its first foray across the border with a 130 capacity sell-out screening of From Scotland With Love followed by a Q&A with Director Virginia Heath, at the fantastic new venue Paxton House. Read more
Last Monday, DCM's Exhibition Account Manager, Rebecca Rau, organised a bakesale on behalf of a great cause. She blogged about it below.
On 29th September, DCM hosted a coffee morning for Macmillan Cancer Support. This involved staff baking cakes to sell in order to raise lots of cash! A sterling effort was made by all and there was a vast variety of cakes including popcorn/cinema themed cupcakes! We certainly gave Mary Berry a run from her money. Read more
The UK’s National Media Museum and Picturehouse Cinemas have announced a new commercial cinema partnership that will begin on October 30. The partnership sees Picturehouse taking over the operation of the three major screens at the Museum including Europe’s first IMAX screen.
To celebrate introducing IMAX to the UK, on November 7 the opening of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar will premiere at National Media Museum, announcing Its status as one of the few ‘true’ IMAX 70mm film cinemas in the world. Read more
The 11th Advertising Week in New York has seen some serious star power at large, with more to come and - with my DCM hat on - the synergy between advertising, Hollywood, film and cinema, is great to see.
This builds on a theme explored at Spikes Asia last week, where creative agency legend, Johnny Hornby, chairman and CEO of The&Partnership and founding partner of CHI&Partners, talked about a move away from traditional advertising talent. He said: "With the new agency model, a modern creative director doesn't necessarily need to come from the advertising industry. We need to be looking at non-traditional ideas. I think the pace of change is so fast that creative people need a wider horizon." Read more
From 26 September to 23 October, thanks to Digital Cinema Media (DCM), Xbox, Dentsu Aegis and M:United division of McCann London., cinemagoers who download the cinime app will be able to exclusively play Xbox’s Forza Horizon 2 in cinemas across the country, with the chance of winning Xbox’s and copies of the game.
The four week campaign starts a week before the release of the highly-anticipated latest instalment of the Forza series. The campaign will run across 1,500 screens nationwide at Odeon, Cineworld and Vue cinemas. Read more
The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) are holding an open day in London on Wednesday, 22 October. The event will give people the opportunity to find out how FACT protect their members' Intellectual Property today and into the future. You'll get to meet the team of FACT experts and see first-hand how they detect and combat all forms of visual piracy. There will also be demonstrations, talks and Q&As covering internet investigations, scanning, forensics, covert operations and more.
Yvette Dore, Director of Communications, FACT, said: "Cinema exhibition is at the frontline of the fight against film theft, and the Open Day will be a great opportunity to find out more first-hand about the wide-ranging theatrical protection programme we operate with the FDA, as well as the other areas FACT are currently working in to protect our members' IP. We're greatly looking forward to welcoming our colleagues from cinemas across the UK on the 22nd." Read more
The Weekend Round-up
The popularity of live event cinema was once again confirmed as Billy Elliot The Musical Live became the first ever live event cinema title to top the UK box office, opening with a fantastic £1.9m, despite only being in cinemas on Sunday. Denzel Washington was the star who missed out on the top spot as his latest action-thriller, The Equalizer also opened with £1.9m but just £14k less than Billy Elliot. That total figure compares favourably with his recent star vehicles, 2 Guns, Flight (both £1.4m) and Unstoppable (£1.7m), and only two of his films this century have opened higher, Safe House (£2.1m) in 2012 and American Gangster (£2.6m) in 2007. Safe House finished on £7.2m, so that’s a decent target for The Equalizer to aim for. Read more
DCM's Adam Reynolds caught an exclusive screening of The Riot Club at BFI Southbank as part of the BFI London Film Festival, which featured a Q&A with director Lone Scherfig and almost the entire cast of the Riot Club. Below he provides his thoughts.
The Riot Club- "loosely" based on the antics of the infamous Bullingdon Club, an elite Oxford University crew of the most privileged and most well - connected boys. The order of the day; boozing, initiations, disdain for the average Joe and ultimately, unadulterated violence at the Riot Club's inaugural dinner. Read more
Picturehouse is set to turn part of the Trocadero centre in the London’s West End into a new seven-screen, 1000 seat arthouse cinema.
The company will redevelop the former Cineworld multiplex into a cultural venue, bringing it more in line with their cinemas in boroughs from Brixton to Hackney. Embracing the alternative style of Picturehouse, the centre’s programme will feature mainstream films alongside independent and foreign language films, documentaries and theatre broadcasts. Read more
NEW TITLES ADDED TO SCHEDULE:
The Maze Runner: Scorch Trials is released on 18 September 2015 Read more
The programme for the 21st Bradford Animation Festival has now been announced. The UK’s longest running animation festival, it hosts some of the best events and screenings from the worlds of animation, gaming and visual effects.
Taking place over six days, the festival will showcase the best animated films of 2014 and provide a valuable opportunity for attendees to meet and hear from industry experts. Read more
The Opera House in Blackpool is the latest historic cinema to join the DCM portfolio.
From 1939 to 1975, films were regularly shown at the Opera House, a world famous venue. Dwindling audiences because of the emergence of television saw the cinema screen later ripped out however, almost four decades later, the one screen site venue spent £130,000 installing a new screen, surround sound and a new projection system, kicking off its new era of cinema earlier this year. Read more
