About the Project Creator
Streatham Free Film Festival comprises a group of local volunteers who are passionate about film and equally passionate about bringing cinema to their local community for free!
We started out in 2015 and managed to pull together a festival in a relatively short space of time - 6 weeks to be precise - with very little experience between us of handling and setting up equipment. Fortunately we have had a huge amount of support from the wider Free Film Festival Family, who trained us on setting up different types of screens and projectors, helped us brainstorm ideas, attended events in a show of solidarity and were on the other end of the phone when techinical issues felt completely beyond us. We could not have done it without them!
Since then the festival has grown in size with an array of screenings, which includes a section dedicated to short films, and events, which include film-themed pub quizzes, a 48 hour film competition and talks by industry professionals, including a director of one of the films we screened last year. She attended the screening and did a Q&A about her film, They Will Have To Kill Us First, for which we had a fantastic turnout. During last year's film festival we also saw more people attend the festival from outside the local area. We ensure that we get as many audience members to complete feedback forms after each screening, which in turn gives us the opportunity to speak to them. From this we gleaned that certain film choices, such as They Will Have to Kill Us First, attracted people to travel to Streatham - something which we are extremely proud of. We love the idea of putting Streatham on the map, which can only benefit the local area and businesses. The festival even got a mention in Time Out in 2015! In additon to this we want to give local film directors a platform to show their work and for young people to get involved in event planning, volunteering and getting their creative ideas off the ground.
We are keen to ensure that the fesitval can keep running and that it can continue to be a free event so we are always on the look out for funding to facilitate this. We are very lucky that the volunteers bring energy, expertise and enthusiasm to create an exciting festival. Our aim is to continue to show films people have not seen in locations they have not been.