This week we’ve been thinking about our micro film festival: Films on the Gallery Wall. 2021 would have marked the 4th outing for the festival which was created to celebrate great Worthing venues, organisations, artists and businesses as well as shining a spotlight on fantastic films from around the world.
In February 2020 we collaborated with a broad range of local organisations and venues to bring experiences ranging from Italian horror masterpieces at The Venue in St Pauls to the world’s smallest cinema which was built and housed inside the gallery at Colonnade House.
Below is our highlight reel from last year:
If like us, you’re really missing trips to The Dome and The Connaught cinemas check out some of the recommendations from longtime Films on the Gallery Wall collaborator and Colonnade House studio member Sam Bourner of Persistent Peril and So it goes:
Hopefully, So it Goes and Persistent Peril will both be back at Films on the Gallery Wall in 2022, but for now there’s plenty of great cinema to discover at home.
On iPlayer don’t miss Steve McQueen’s vital ‘Small Axe’ series, or ‘Minding The Gap’, a brilliant skateboarding documentary that opens up conversations about race, class and youth.
Hidden away on Amazon Prime is the superb ‘Kaili Blues’, Bi Gan’s stunning directorial debut that features an astonishing 40-minute shot to blow your mind. Also on Prime are Garrett Bradley’s ’Time’, a vital and moving documentary voted second on Sight and Sounds films of 2020, and the experimental ‘Hale County This Morning, This Evening’, exploring Black communities in Hale Country, Alabama.
Netflix likes to hide its treasures too, not enough people have seen Mati Diop’s genre twisting feature debut ‘Atlantics’, or Eva Trobisch’s ‘All is Well’, a deeply intelligent and controlled drama.’
Since our collaboration with The Worthing Society, at our screening of Britain on Film: Coast & Sea, they have still been active in the local community.
The Worthing Society says;
1. In May 2020, we celebrated the installation of the new Beach Walkway laid across the beach to give access to the Lifeboat Memorial Garden and the new Information Board. It honours the heroism of Worthing’s early Lifeboat Crews, from 1853 to 1930 when the Shoreham Lifeboat took over. The new walkway allows all members of the community to safely access the garden, and is safe for wheelchair users and young families with pushchairs. The opening of the walkway was attended by the Mayor of Worthing Councillor Lionel Harman and the Mayoress, Councillor Karen Harman.
2. During August the Society celebrated the bi-centenary of Beach House built by John Biagio Rebecca in 1820. This iconic mansion house was saved for Worthing in 1981 by our founder, Mrs Pat Baring known as the battle axe after a 5-year campaign! We had planned an event in October, but this was lost to COVID-19. We have developed a PowerPoint presentation called ‘The Biography of a House’ telling the story of the house and the remarkable characters who lived there. We hope to show this at an event later this year.
3. The Worthing Society dedicated a Blue Plaque on 8.10.20 at ‘The Highdown’ in honour of Sir Frederick and Lady Sybil Stern creators of Highdown Gardens. The event was scaled down in numbers but was still an important occasion, attended by the Mayor and Mayoress.
Food Pioneers have been very busy since the collaboration at our screening of Bait at Subway EPS with so it goes. We caught up with Debs Butler from Food Pioneers to find out about their exciting Bees&Seas project.
Debs Butler says;
‘Our natural environment is in crisis with species and habitats experiencing ongoing declines. Vegetated shingle and chalk grassland are rare habitats in Sussex, occupying unique ecological niches in our local landscape. Pollinating insects are largely in free fall and the pressures of climate change is pushing species outside of natural ranges. Creating stepping stone habitats along green recovery networks is essential. Linking land to sea through community helps create awareness and will help us to adapt to future changes.
Social issues and disconnection from the natural environment have worsened over Covid-19, particularly for those without access to gardens. Communally owned, accessible local green space and connection with nature have been hugely important during the pandemic and will continue to be. At the same time, people are increasingly spending time indoors on screens, rather than outside in nature, which is exacerbating physical and mental health issues across a range of communities.
Requests to We Are FoodPioneers (WAFP) for green space and pollinator volunteer opportunities for people of all ages have increased beyond existing capacity.
In 2019 WAFP delivered 6 free nature related family events at Brooklands, attracting over 1800 local people. A&W Council has supported WAFP, Friends of Brooklands Park and Creative Waves to identify a shared need for a community hub which delivers positive outcomes for people and nature, engages diverse communities, restores local spaces, teaches skills and offers memorable wildlife experiences.
The Bees and Seas project will create a community pollinator hub in Brooklands Park, Worthing and extend habitat links from the sea to the Downs. Using donated and locally sourced materials, and galvanising local volunteers and communities, we will work in partnership with The Friends of Brooklands Park and Creative Waves. We will co-design a site and exciting programme of activity to support and encourage awareness of wilder pollinators and learning.
We will transform the existing derelict site and create two large green roofs on donated shipping containers. Creative Waves will transform it into a colourful conservation classroom, topped with chalk and vegetated shingle eco-roofs (1 land and 1 sea). These will become classroom and workshop spaces, a pollinator lawn, with local orchard trees, water harvesting, a herb garden, an edible skip garden, natural and viewing beehives, wildlife habitat, bug hotels, flowering climbers, artwork and edible plants to mask industrial fence lines.
Working in an area of the park which has been excluded from the masterplan, will complement the Brooklands Masterplan. It will revitalise a much-needed base for local community events WAFP, A&W Council and the Friends of Brooklands will partner on a project which engages local people, regenerates the area and makes connections with local food and nature.
We will partner with Breathing Spaces CIC, EPIC and other local educators at their sites, using their skills and experience to support vulnerable and excluded people to engage with the natural world, the National Park and wider issues of climate and biodiversity decline. We will promote the benefit of growing and creating pollinator and insect friendly habitat, and will train and inspire young people, families and others through direct contact with bees and nature based activities.
We will link closely with local rangers to make these visions a reality and promote natural capital such as pollination. The recent AW Council Climate Assembly, a conference for local people, WAFP were on the advisory panel and identified the need to create robust ecological networks and healthy local food landscapes to support human wellbeing and nature in a changing climate. This project will support local food production in parks using herbs, vegetables, fruits and honey. Finally the project will expand on, and support existing work that WAFP and its partners have done in the local area to engage people young and old with bees, local food and issues relating to them. We will recruit and sustain a team of community volunteers with The Friends of Brooklands Park.’
