From thinking Londoner's blog London Says:
On the 15th October this year the brash, populist, deliciously unwieldy London Film Festival will roll into town, trumpeting its wares like a mountebank trying to peddle Agent Orange in the guise of Dr. Humpington's Miracle Cure Spectacular. For make no mistake, London is the Danny Dyer of film festivals -all sound and fury, but signifying very little.
And what should it signify? How about affordability?
Ken Livingstone, god rest his soul, pumped £100k from the London Development Agency into ensuring that the Film Festival has the facilities befitting such a famous fandango, and also towards making it possible for cinemas outside of the traditional ground double zero of Leicester Square and the South Bank to show LFF films...But despite its purportedly accessible credentials, the London Film Festival still smacks of exclusivity to the vast masses who balk at the idea of paying £12.50 to see a film, and who can't really afford to take the time off work to see the half-price matinee of "Bee Movie", no matter how tempting Jerry Seinfeld's animated shtick.
And here lies Boris Johnson's big opportunity. London has demonstrated that is has myriad open spaces suitable for showing films to the masses. My first Saturday upon moving to London was spent in gleeful harmony with enough communists to fill a long march watching "Battleship Potemkin" in Trafalgar Square, accompanied by some truly painful drivel by the Pet Shop Boys. Somerset House hosts the Summer Screen season in its romantic grounds, and our multitude of parks offer endless possibilities for a tent, a screen and maybe a bottle of 2005 Clos De Papes to keep the gloaming chills at bay.
The idea of offering free screenings of unusual filmic fayre may well be anathema to distributors and to the culturally disinterested, but to the thousands of film fans who embrace the idea of communal cinema this would be a wonderful way of opening up the Festival.
Boris? Munira? Anyone else?
