From the success of Romford’s very first Horror film festival at the beginning of June, which saw over 400 horror fans and filmmakers come to Premiere Cinemas in Romford over two days to watch a cacophony of world film – the team behind the Romford Film Festival are now embarking on an even bigger event to end the month.
From 24th – 28th June over 200 films will be shown as part of the fifth annual ‘Romford Film Festival’ and the third annual ‘Eurasian Film Festival’. It will host world premieres, including ‘I’m An Electric Lampshade’ the perplexing story of the man who gave up his day job and invested his life savings into becoming a rockstar and The Ghost Of Borley Rectory starring Julian Sands, Toyah Willcox and Colin Baker. The festival is also showing big named films including ‘I am Vengeance – Retaliation’ – starring Vinnie Jones,
The locally made documentary ‘Rom Boys: 40 Years or RAD’ will be playing as part of the opening event a empowering archive following the reignition of Romford’s beloved skate park by its original proprietors and a team of street artists. Making it RAD again after years of disuse.
“It’s great to screen such cool films being made in the area” says Spencer Hawken Festival Director. “The festival has always been about inspiring people in Romford with great film from across the world and with film made from around here. This side of London / Essex is full of great filmmakers and its great to be able to give them a platform to show their work”.
The festival will hold it’s usual red-carpet special networking events including an awards ceremony on Monday 28th and a cross-cultural launch event on Thursday 24th June. The cultural press launch will include some of our best local and international films alongside special ‘out of competition’ films from the Eurasian region.
Over the past three years the festival has partnered with the Eurasian Film Festival to introduce film to the UK from hard-to-reach places. This year the Eurasian Film Festival will be showing feature and short films made in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan as well as an array or Russian language film including ‘Pope [The Priest]’ a Russian historic drama about the great patriotic war and the role of the orthodox church during German occupation.
In addition, after a successful festival for The Fighting Spirit Film Festival, who moved to Romford to run their 5th Martial Arts festival, the festival are bring a “Fighting Spirit On The Road” segment to Romford, showing a night of their best short films from over the past 5 years.
“This is one of the things that sets our festival apart from others – the huge range of film. You can literally travel the globe over the weekend by sitting in our festival screens” says Spencer. “If you are feeling bad about not getting away this year, this could be the culture fix you are looking for!”
The ceremony’s awards have kindly been sponsored by a number of businesses working locally including The Mercury, Premiere Cinema’s, Bidvest Noonan, NRA roofing and are being supported by media outlets The Havering Daily and Nerdly.
The festival runs from 10am – 10pm every day from Thursday 24th June to Monday 28th June. All tickets can be purchased on the Premiere Cinema website with a full festival pass costing just £30.00, a day pass for £10, or single film sessions costing £4.00 – https://romford.premierecinemas.co.uk/
More information about the programmed films can be found at www.romfordfilmfestival.com
Mentioned Film Times
I am Vengeance: Sunday 4.00pm
Romboys: 30 Years of RAD: Thursday 9.25pm
Pope [The Priest]: Thursday 9.25pm
Im An Electric Lampshade: Thursday 7.15pm
The Ghosts Of Borley Rectory – Friday 8.10pm.
Published in various websites, Philip is a reviewer who is best known for his interviews and media coverage of independent projects including; films, books, theatre and live events. Always on the lookout for something different to cover!
