Film Festival

Film festival for Essex

Supported by the Essex County Council Arts and Cultural Fund, the Colchester Film Festival is taking place this November. Here we find out more from Aura Films.

Why did you start a film festival? We started in 2012 because at the time the region didn’t have an international film festival and we wanted to bring the best films and the highest profile guest speakers to Colchester, to inspire the next generation of filmmakers and build a filmmaker community in Essex.

There are plenty of film festivals in London, but the high price of tickets – coupled with the travel time and costs – made these events inaccessible to a lot of people, so we decided to bring the films and speakers to Colchester.

Since the festival started, it has screened multiple films and cultivated an excellent track record of discovering filmmaking talent, some of which have gone on to win BAFTAs and Oscars.

Over the years, the festival has featured a variety of highprofile guest speakers, including James Kent ‘Testament of Youth’, editor Mick Audsley ‘The Avengers, Twelve Monkeys’ and editor John Wilson ‘Billy Elliot, Downton Abbey’.

What kind of films can people see at the festival? All the films will be features that haven’t been screened or have only had small releases in the region. Our aim is to bring high-quality, low-profile films so audiences can discover them.

With the increase in cinema blockbusters and streaming, smaller niche cinema is getting more and more difficult for audiences to access. There are more hidden gems out there than ever before and Colchester Film Festival aims to find them.

Who will be appearing on the panel this year? There will be four guest speaker events throughout Saturday 12 November, including a panel on ‘creating an award-winning film’ featuring Academy Award winning writer and director of ‘The Silent Child’, Chris Overton.

The panel also includes BATFA award-winning writer and director, Caroline Bartleet, who is from Colchester. Caroline’s film ‘Operator’ - which won a BAFTA for best short film - was screened at Colchester Film Festival. Obviously, we’re delighted to be inviting her back and we’re sure she will be great inspiration to young filmmakers in the area.

Also, director Mike Leigh, who has been nominated for several Oscars, will be the headline speaker at the event. He will be speaking about his career and film making process as well as hosting a question and answers session.

Finally, Deborah Moggach will be attending. Deborah is the screenwriter of the 2005 ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Tulip Fever’ - based on her novel of the same name - and the writer of ‘These Foolish Things’, which was adapted for screen to become ‘The Best Marigold Hotel’.

How has the Arts and Cultural Fund helped? It’s allowed us to attract bigger name guest speakers to the event and create an event on the same level as some of the festivals in London. It’s also allowed us to keep the tickets prices low to make the festival accessible to as many people as possible.

In future, we plan to run the film festival in 2023 and expand on what we hope to achieve in 2022.

There will be film screenings from 7:00pm Monday 7 November to Friday 11 November and guest speaker events from 11.00am on Saturday 12 November. Tickets for the festival will be available at www.firstsite.uk