Lights, camera, action! -- Louth Film Club celebrates 20th anniversary

Based at the Playhouse Cinema on Cannon Street, the club shows a selection of modern arthouse films from around the world, as well as a range of classics which have not been seen on the big screen for several years.

It regularly attracts audiences of more than 70, and big-names stars such as Julie Christie and Jim Broadbent, both of whom have links to Louth, have been guests of the club in the past.

To mark the anniversary, the club has organised two special screenings this summer. On Monday, June 30, the 1964 epic blockbuster ‘Zulu’ will be screened, and the following week, the club is showing ‘Mind-Set’, directed by University of Lincoln academic Mikey Murray.

‘Mind-Set’ won the top award at the recent Manchester Film Festival and is receiving excellent reviews.

In the run-up to the celebrations, the Louth Leader (LL) has conducted a question-and-answer session with Paul Hill (PH), who is the chairman of the club. It reveals more about the club and his personal love of films:

LL: How did your obsession with films start?

PH: When I was 15. I saw William Wyler’s great film ‘Ben-Hur’ (1959). It had all the high qualities of an epic. It was a saga of truly Biblical proportion, a Michelangelo of cinema.

LL: What are the five absolute masterpieces of cinema, and why?

PH: Not an easy task. For starters, how about ‘The Searchers’ (1956), which is a beautiful, poetic, study of hate as a self-destructive way of coping with tragedy and the harshness of life in an unforgiving big-picture landscape?

Next is ‘Vertigo’ (1958), Alfred Hitchcock’s disturbing, yet yearning and deeply reflective, study of obsession.

‘Last Year At Marienbad’ (1961) is a geometrically formed study of the entanglement of memory and illusion.

‘West Side Story’ (1961) is one of the most audio-visually exciting films ever made. It is a cinematic electric current.

And finally ‘A Matter Of Life And Death’ (1946), which is a rich and deep-level exploration of the borderline between life now and life to come.

Of course, do keep in mind that if I answered this question another week, I would come up with at least three different films!

LL: You wrote a book entitled ‘The Seven Deadly Sins Of Modern Cinema’. Can you outline briefly your ideas?

PH: Despite its rather teasing title, it’s not lightweight. It is a heavy-duty, industrial-strength, large-scale, full philosophical treatise which has certainly not made me rich! It explores the nature of film and the ways in which this nature can be exploited or misused.

LL: What were your impressions of Louth Film Club when you first joined?

PH: I was both surprised and delighted to learn of it and resolved to join it when the time came to retire to Louth.

LL: How did you get involved in the committee?

PH: In 2009, the committee sent an email. They wanted a new person. I faced tough competition. There was just the one candidate.

LL: You became close to the first chair, Alex McMullen. What do you consider his major legacy for the club?

PH: I think just being a founder member would qualify as a major legacy all by itself. Alex shares the accolade with Nick Louth, Louise Niekerk and Mark Merrifield. Getting things going from scratch with such aplomb is certainly not to be found in my own catalogue of gifts, so members may rejoice that I was not one of the founders. We owe the original ‘fantastic four’ everything. As for his own more individual contribution, I think Alex knew ‘the cinematic territory’, so to speak, as well as anyone. It was a privilege to join them all.

LL: Since taking over as chair, how have you sought to make the club current and interesting?

PH: My own focus – and I think that of others on the committee – is getting the programming right. Succeed there and I’d like to think we can both survive and thrive in increasingly challenging times. Get it wrong and the club dies. Thank you Richard, Heather, Alan and Ed in this enterprise.

LL: The club shows largely arthouse films from around the world. What do you consider the role of Hollywood today?

PH: Decades ago, Hollywood was the birthplace of some of the finest cinema ever made. It could produce magical spells that enchanted (almost) everybody. Today, it is the manufacturer of little more than gaping half-wittedness.

LL: How many films would you tend to watch each year? You travel to Nottingham, Sheffield and London to see films. You have your own home cinema and you subscribe to film steaming platforms.

PH: It runs into three figures. That includes about 60 that may be suitable for the club. The rest are simply my old classic friends. As for streaming platforms, I subscribe to three of them, ones that distribute the sort of films we show.

LL: What is your favourite way of watching films?

PH: It’s got to be at the cinema. The magic is conveyed best by a big screen, surrounded by darkness, with others, in a (somewhat) theatrical setting.

LL: How do you envisage the future of the club?

PH: I envisage more of what we do already – showing the best in world cinema, together with a classic or two lest we forget the great cinematic achievements of the past.

LL: How do you envisage the future of cinema?

PH: I try not to. The mental exercise depresses me. It’s already getting much harder to ‘bag good ones’ for the club.