I experienced my first ever film festival recently at the BFI LFF, so I thought I’d give a whimsical run down of some of my experiences. Enjoy.
Nancy Epton and the Anxiety of the Clickety Click Pen
It’s pretty normal when you’re a film journalist to take notes, right? I saw a lot of folks with clipboards looking like they were going to be writing stuff as they were watching, so I assumed it was cool. Back in the day, I used to just try and write with a standard pen while I was watching joints in pitch black background, so it wasn’t a huge surprise when the lights turned up in the credits to discover that my handwriting, which isn’t exactly stellar to begin with, just looked like the scribblings of a madwoman.
But in recent times, I’ve used my ol’ reliable light pen. You know, the ones where you click it and a light turns on at the top of the pen so you can actually see what you’re writing. I didn’t think that sound was particularly loud when I was writing notes in the safe confines of my local Cineworld, which is often hella quiet and there’s no one around to hear the noise. With the LFF, though, there’s plenty of people around to hear that sound. As the Alien tagline doesn’t say, in the Picturehouse Central Cinema, everyone can hear the pen click.
Well, I felt self-conscious that they could. But on my first few screenings there was a healthy barrier between myself and other viewers. But then after that, there wasn’t. After a polite viewer asked me to stop with the annoying clicking sounds (to clarify, I click again after making a note to turn off the pen light so I can save energy and the pen light won’t run out too soon (eco priorities, amirite?), I decided it was indeed too annoying to use the clickety click pen in the vicinity of fellow viewers. I didn’t want to be that guy. So I stopped, instead relying on the power of my mind to keep information safe. Or at least, rely on that, then head downstairs to sit downstairs in the ground floor café area after the credits and rapidly write out my thoughts.
The Lonely Ghost of Picturehouse Central
I mean, I wasn’t particularly lonely, but I was alone. And I wasn’t the only one in that position, because I saw a fair amount of other people who were in their own bubbles too. But it was still somewhat awkward/amusing to be eating my packed lunch downstairs (what’s that? Buy lunch in London, you say? U mad, bro? Those prices are not something my semi-employed ass can afford. Be real) on my ownsome while also witnessing plenty of groups talking like they’d known each other since childhood. Which then gave me a mild PTSD flashback to my first year at [Posh University] where there was a dinner in which lots of posh folks were talking to each other like they’d also known each other for forever when they were in fact just utilising their super posh confidence skills to talk really eloquently. And I wanted to leave my body and just crawl into a foetal position.
Anyway, this experience at the LFF wasn’t nearly as intense as that, it was just a fun observation to make. Ok bye.
The Big Scary Fastest Finger First Film Rush
The booking system wasn’t particularly easy to use. At least for my noob self, anyway. I went into the festival expecting that I’d be able to book some big films like Paper Tiger, Behemoth! or Godzilla Minus One. Did I manage to book any of those films? No, dear reader, I did not. I tried to go on the booking app and book as soon as those goobers were open, but no. Gone in a second. Lord, it’s a miracle! They up and vanished like a fart in the wind, to quote the exact words that Warden Gordon gives after Andy escapes in The Shawshank Redemption.
But then again, the silver lining was that I got to see a tonne of really intriguing indie films that I probably would struggle to see elsewhere, whereas I’ll definitely be able to see those bigger films when they eventually arrive at the cinema. Swings and roundabouts.
The Windy Intriguing Rush Queue
Theoretically, it wasn’t impossible to get into these big films that were supposedly booked up. If someone decided to randomly drop out, then an extra spot might just open up. For the brave travellers who wanted to try this endeavour, there’d be a separate queue where they had a chance to get in. I briefly considered trying this technique, but ultimately it seemed somewhat pointless. Sometimes a few spare positions came up, but this was often when the film itself would’ve been playing for about ten minutes already. Why bother watching something if you can’t see the whole product? Anyway, film folks are gonna do what film folks are gonna do. I don’t understand it. I remember missing the first few minutes of First Man back in 2018. I was mad as hell and I couldn’t take it anymore. So I smashed up the whole place in televised fashion.
I didn’t do any of that, that’s just me making a lame Network reference. You’re welcome.